Red Room
by Ebenbild
Summary: Neville walks into a red room. "Hello, Harry," he greeted. "I see you were busy in the last eight years since we saw each other." Some people change their profession after a loss. Harry is one of them. With Neville's and Malfoy's plan, the world will rue the day Harry lost his loved ones... even if the world might not remember it. Time travel! Somehow Dark-not-Evil!Harry
1. Chapter 1

_**Disclaimer**_ _: I'm too young to be Rowling so there is sadly no way Harry Potter is mine…_

 _ **Placing:**_ _29_ _years after the war_ _._

 _Challenge: 'Prompt of the day'. Prompt_ _: (_ _insult) blood red_ _. 1217_ _words_ _._ _Gryffindor_ _,_ _Hogwarts_ _._

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sSsSsSsSs

 _ **RED ROOM**_

sSs

The first impression, Neville had of the room he walked in was red, lots and lots of red.

The carpet, the floor, the walls, the furniture, the ceiling – all covered in red, blood red.

Blood.

Neville stopped at the entrance to the room, taking in the surreal scene he had walked into.

In the middle of the room was a table with five mangled bodies sitting around it in a horror version of a normal mealtime. On top of the table stood another man, currently working on the placement of a sixth body.

Neville watched the man for a minute or two, then he decided that he wouldn't comment on the idea of a body as a lamp and moved on to more important topics.

"Hello, Harry," he greeted the man. "I see you were busy in the last eight years since we saw each other."

The man on the table didn't even bother to turn around or flinch at Neville's entrance. Neville guessed that the man had known that Neville was coming long before Neville had even entered the building.

"Hello, Nev," the black haired, green eyed man without glasses said instead. "Not here to arrest me, are you?"

"Nah," said Neville, waving off the question as unimportant. "I'm still a Herbology teacher at Hogwarts, not an auror."

"Good," Harry said and finished arranging the last body he had been working on to his liking. "What brings you here, Nev?"

"Malfoy," Neville said and this time Harry turned around in surprise.

"Huh?" said he, interest in his eyes. "I haven't heard of him since… ten years? Yeah, that's 'bout right. Saw him last the day I brought Albus to the train station…"

For a moment Harry pondered on it a bit longer, then he shrugged it off and continued.

"How's the old chap?" asked he interested. "Has he taken my old post as a Head Auror, yet?"

"No," Neville said. "After the deaths of his wife and son –"

"Ah, yeah," Harry said sighing. "They were at the station as well, weren't they? Astoria and… Scorpius, wasn't it? Al was friends with the boy…"

"Yes," Neville said sighing. "Astoria and Scorpius. They were killed about the same time as your own family… anyway, after their deaths, Malfoy decided to leave the aurors –"

"Like I decided to leave them?" Harry asked interested.

Neville looked around the blood red room and winced.

"Not that… drastically," he finally settled on politely. "He was hired by the Department of Mysteries. He's been working on a lot of different stuff over the last years –"

"Hmm…" said Harry. "I think I heard about that. Some complains about a thief and manors being robbed blind or some such…"

Neville winced again.

"That's… more of a hobby than a job," he finally settled on. "The stuff Malfoy's been working on at work were more… delicate in nature… well, he might have tinkered with some of the stuff in his free times as well, but all in all, the things he has worked on most was prophecies and some such –"

"Yeah? So what?" Harry asked confused and hopped from the table. "Doesn't have anything to do with me anymore, does it?"

"No, not truly," Neville said. "But he still wants to talk to you. It's mainly because of your current chosen profession…"

Harry raised an eyebrow.

"Why?" he asked, still a little bit confused. "'S not as if the DoM arrests people now for killing off others…"

"Er… he didn't sent me to arrest you or some such," Neville said. "He actually just asked me if I wanted to come, but I thought we might need some numbers on our side, so we decided to ask you as well…"

Harry raised an eyebrow.

"Don't know what you want from me, but two or three – that doesn't change a lot, you know?" He said amused.

"Well, it does if one of them is a psychotic assassin, another one a neurotic thief and the last one –"

"A bad-ass strategist?" Harry offered amused and Neville squirmed.

"I wouldn't put it like that," he said slowly. "I'm just a Herbology teacher, you know?"

Harry raised an eyebrow and then had to wipe his forehead when some blood that adorned his hair threatened to enter his eyes.

"Says the man who singlehandedly strategized the attack on the people who killed our families," he said dryly.

Neville shrugged.

"I had to do something," he said darkly. "They killed Hannah and my children. They killed the Weasleys, Ginny, your children, Astoria, Scorpius and all the others! I was the teacher of all those children who died, I was the friend of a lot of people who died at that time as well! I couldn't just stand by – just because I wasn't in the auror corps!"

Harry waved it off.

"Of course you couldn't," he said as if Neville had declared the sky blue. "You were a fighter in the war, you headed the DA in seventh year, you went to the DoM with me in fifth year – there was no way that you could just stand by and watch!"

Neville smiled.

"There wasn't," he said. "Now, will you come along and meet Malfoy?"

Harry just raised an eyebrow.

"And do what exactly?" He asked incredulously.

Neville's face turned into a feral smile.

"We're breaking a few more laws," he said grinning.

Harry wiped his forehead again and then looked back at the table with the bodies.

"Well," he said slowly. "'S not as if I care about the law, particularly…"

"We want to break into the Department of Mysteries and use the veil combined with a time-turner," Neville explained.

Harry frowned.

"What does it matter if you combine those two?" He asked confused.

"We rewrite a runic array on the veil and one on the time-turner so that they fit," explained Neville.

Understanding filled Harry's eyes.

"Ah!" said he. "Timed dislocation and destruction of mass to ensure a power bust. Let me guess? Another way of travelling back in time without messing around with time-laws. Just one body, one soul, but the memories of our current selves embodied inside our younger selves…"

Neville raised an eyebrow.

"I have no idea what you were blabbing about just now," he said. "But then, it sounded about right, considering that I didn't understand Malfoy's explanation as well…"

Harry waved it off.

"You haven't worked on wards, Nev, have you?" He asked amused. "The better you know wards, the easier it's to understand theory like that…"

Neville shrugged.

"Doesn't matter," he said. "It's enough for me to understand that we three go back in time to change it without being found by the DoM the moment we arrive."

Harry snorted.

"Alright," he said. "I'm in. When do we start?"

Neville's grin turned feral.

"Whenever you're ready to go," he said.

Harry looked back at the corpses.

"I'm ready," he replied. "Let's go!"

The world would regret the day Harry Potter's children and wife were killed in the attack – not that they knew. For them, Harry Potter was a normal boy one day, and a psychotic assassin the next. But maybe, just maybe, this time around the world would be a better place when Harry Potter was finally done with her…

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 _Just a little idea_

 _Hope you liked it_

 _Ebenbild_


	2. Chapter 2

_**Disclaimer**_ _: I'm too young to be Rowling so there is sadly no way Harry Potter is mine…_

 _ **Placing:**_ _29_ _years after the war_ _._

 _Challenge: 'Prompt of the day'. Prompt:_ (song) F. F. F. - Bebe Rexha feat. G-Eazy _. 1005 words. Gryffindor, Hogwarts._

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sSsSsSsSs

 _ **EMPTY ROOM**_

sSs

Draco Malfoy sat inside his office, staring at the photograph of his waving and smiling son and wife.

He closed his eyes, refusing to cry like he had done so many times before in the past.

They were dead.

Dead.

Dead.

And it was all his fault!

Well, it hadn't been his fault directly, but if he hadn't trusted… if he hadn't been friends…

No, in the end it didn't matter if he had been friends with the people who killed his family. In the end, it didn't matter if he hadn't been at fault of not – it hadn't been his decision…

"But you trusted them," he thought darkly. "You trusted them to take your wife and child to the train. You trusted them to look after your child while you had to work – and they killed your wife and child without any regret!"

That was something Draco still couldn't understand.

He had been friends with Pansy Parkinson and Gregory Goyle - they had been his friends since before Hogwarts even! They and him and Vincent Crabbe – they had been the best friends!

Yes, Draco had to admit that he hadn't always been a true friend to them, but after the war, he had changed. He had tried to make up for his mistakes and be the friend they deserved – and they had paid him by killing his family and everybody else on the platform.

Draco had hunted them after that, them and their associates.

Gregory Goyle had died at his hands, thanks to Longbottom's strategies. But Parkinson had been trickier. She and five others had vanished and nobody had been able to find her again.

Draco had never overcome the loss, but after five years of search, he had decided to dedicate his life to something other than revenge.

He wanted to make it right – and to do so he had to find a different way than revenge. Revenge didn't make it right. Revenge didn't bring back his family or show him that those three friends he had had were fake friends, friends he could do without…

Oh, how he wished he would have known that little fact growing up!

He had trusted them!

Trusted them with his own life, with everything he did, with his family!

What a stupid Slytherin he had been, what a Gryffindor in a snake's skin!

And Draco wanted to change that – but he couldn't do so alone.

He needed somebody on his side, somebody with abilities that would aid him when he tried to change what seemed to be unchangeable right now.

So Draco had decided to speak to Longbottom – the man who had singlehandedly taken down those people who had killed their families. The man who had made sure that except of Pansy and her five cohorts – those six had long been gone before they even found the group – nobody escaped.

Neville Longbottom, a Gryffindor at heart, was but a terrifying snake hidden in the lion's fur if enraged – at least that had been Draco's impression. And Draco was willing to risk it and take Longbottom back into the past with him. He might not truly know the man, but he would be damned to leave a man like that back in the future.

There was just one problem with that decision...

It was nothing, just a little issue...

The issue that Longbottom insisted on taking Potter with them – and Potter was more than unhinged since the day his family died…

"Still," Draco mused. "Potter has his good side, too. He is a dangerous individual – and a lot less like the Gryffindor moron he was back then…"

Maybe, it was even more than a lot less Gryffindor...

Draco might not be willing to admit it, but Potter had managed to shed his lion's fur and come out a basilisk. The wizarding world was terrified of the man – even if they didn't have to fear him that much, since Potter always just went after those who deserved it.

"Still, it is terrifying to know what a monster is out there, hidden in the night," Draco thought darkly.

And Potter was a monster.

He had turned into one the moment his wife and children had died – and not even the current Head Auror dared to go against him for the fear of death at Potter's hands.

"More than terrifying," Draco mused aloud.

"If you're thinking about me," a voice suddenly spoke up. "You might be right."

Draco flinched and looked up.

But it wasn't Potter standing at his office door, but Lovegood – pardon, Scamander.

"Scamander," he said surprised. "What are you doing here?"

The woman looked through him, her eyes dreamy.

"I was told by the nargels to come here and talk to you," she said. "They told me that you planned to go on a journey and it would benefit me if I came with you…"

Draco's eyebrows furrowed.

"I'm not planning to go on any journey, Scamander," he said, denying everything.

She just raised an eyebrow, which looked terrifying since her eyes seemed to clear and bore into him the moment she did.

"You're going to journey into the past," she said. "I will come with you."

"Scamander –"

"They took my boys, Malfoy," she said, her dreamy voice oddly hard. "They took my husband. Now I will make sure that they won't take anybody else ever again!"

"Your husband –"

"Is as good as dead," she said. "He might not have died, but sharing the room with the elder Longbottoms isn't better."

Draco closed his eyes.

"It isn't," he allowed.

Luna Scamander smiled cruelly.

"Then you admit that I have every right to come with you?" She asked.

"I didn't plan the ritual for four people –"

"I have the calculations," she replied, her cruel smile not vanishing.

Draco gulped.

He had a feeling that he shouldn't dare to object further.

"Alright, Scamander," he said. "You can come with us."

"Good," she replied and turned around to leave his office again. "I'll wait for you at the veil."

Then she stepped out.

Just before she closed the door, she added another thing that stopped Draco in his tracks.

"By the way," she said. "Harry took down Parkinson and the missing five. They're beautifully arranged. If you ask, Neville or Harry will even be willing to provide the memory."

The door closed, leaving Draco to wonder if it was odd to suddenly feel grateful towards his former arch-enemy…

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 _Just a little idea_

 _Hope you liked it_

 _Ebenbild_


	3. Chapter 3

_**Disclaimer**_ _: I'm too young to be Rowling so there is sadly no way Harry Potter is mine…_

 _ **Placing:**_ _29_ _years after the war_ _._

 _Challenge: 'Prompt of the day'. Prompt_ _: (_ _word) super_ _. 1401_ _words_ _._ _Gryffindor_ _,_ _Hogwarts_ _._

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sSsSsSsSs

 _ **DEATH ROOM**_

sSs

When Neville stopped in surprise just after they stepped inside the room, Harry guessed that the scene waiting for them hadn't been on Neville's mind when he agreed to take the job.

Harry wasn't even sure if Malfoy had expected the scene they had walked into – not that Malfoy already could know about it, seeing that he wasn't there already.

Harry on the other hand was suddenly a lot more cheerful.

"Luna!" He greeted the woman in the room enthusiastically. "How are you? What are you doing here?"

"I'm modifying the runes on the veil," she told them as if it wasn't out of the normal to see Harry inside the Ministry of Magic or that she was working on the thing that the DoM called the 'Veil of Death'.

"I can see that," Harry said, looking over her work. "I just didn't know that you were part of Malfoy's little project!"

"Well, I didn't know that as well," Neville said dryly.

Luna just smiled.

"Don't worry, Harry," she said. "Malfoy didn't keep anything from you. He didn't know that I would be part of his project until a few minutes ago."

Harry nodded as if it was totally reasonable that Malfoy hadn't known that little fact.

"Of course he didn't," he said. "Even if I'm actually surprised that he didn't ask you before that –"

Luna waved it off.

"You know how he is, Harry," she said. "Head in the clouds and everything. I'm just surprised that he was reasonable enough to involve you!"

"Actually," Neville started to say, but Luna interrupted him before he could even think about speaking further.

"Ah, of course!" She said. "Neville brought you in! I should have known that at least he was clever enough to involve you!"

"I'm not entirely too sure that involving you and Potter was in any way or form clever," Malfoy said in that moment while stepping inside the room and closing and locking the door behind himself. "I'm still reluctant to even think about the things that will go wrong just because Potter wants to pull a lone saviour act again!"

Harry just raised an eyebrow at the former Slytherin.

"I'm actually not too interested in saving anyone," he told the other man.

Malfoy raised his eyebrows at that.

"Then why did you agree to come at all, Potter?" he asked frowning.

Harry shrugged but decided that the truth couldn't hurt too much.

"I just thought that going into the past might help to prevent some mistakes I made," he said, sounding unconcerned. "It might lead to some people staying alive in the end, but all in all, I'm not too concerned about saving anyone…"

Malfoy's frown deepened.

"I thought you wanted to go back to meet the Weaslette again and all that," he pointed out.

Harry just looked at the other man as if he was insane.

"Ginny might have fallen for me the first time around," he pointed out. "But there's no way I get involved with her the second time around. I'm not a hero anymore. I'm a murderer, an assassin. I don't think that she could ever cope with someone like me as a husband."

Malfoy actually looked as if he had to think that over. In the end, he nodded slowly.

"I guess you might be onto something there, Potter," he agreed grudgingly.

Harry just looked at him indulgently.

"So, you're planning to go back and marry your wife, Malfoy?" He asked.

Malfoy sighed at that but in the end shook his head slowly.

"I don't plan on it," he said truthfully. "I want to stop those bastards – I want to stop everything I can. You know, making a better world and all that crap. But I don't want to go back and marry Astoria again. She wouldn't be _my_ Astoria, you know?"

Neville nodded at that, understanding in his eyes. Luna's pained face told everybody that she knew what Malfoy meant as well.

Harry just sighed.

"I get it," he said. "Going back means that they will grow up differently and that means that they won't be the people we knew…"

"Well," Malfoy hesitated. "We could just go back to the day we lost them and –"

"No," Luna said forcefully. "If we do this, we stop everything – and not just the last bloody incident! It started way before that day and I will be damned if I sit by and only change that last day!"

Malfoy sighed.

"But if we go back that far, we will lose –"

The others nodded.

"We will lose everything," Neville said. "But that's the strategically right thing to do. If we stop this, we have to stop the bloody pureblood mania from festering as far back as we can!"

"It was already set in stone when we were born, Longbottom," Malfoy pointed out.

"It was," Luna said. "But if we do it right, the pureblood fractions won't have enough sway even before we start attending Hogwarts –"

"I'm not against the pureblood fractions," Malfoy tried to object.

Harry just raised an eyebrow.

"Then you're happy with what your former friends did in the name of Voldemort's cause?"

Malfoy's mouth shut audible at that.

"No," he growled. "Not one of these children deserved to be blown up because of the Dark Lord's ridiculous beliefs!"

"Exactly," Harry said. "And like that you're against the pureblood fractions, exactly like us!"

"I'm not –"

"You and I know that there are still people in the Ministry who think what happened back then was right," Harry said coolly. "Well, or at least there were until about half a year ago –"

"When you killed the last one," Luna said, not sounding surprised at all. "We're quite aware of that. Malfoy has reduced those people as well, with stealing all their money and all that, after all…"

Malfoy blushed.

"I didn't –"

"Don't deny it, Draco Malfoy," Luna said. "You were the one who made sure all those people Harry didn't kill had to stop spending their money on those who liked the ideas of the dead Dark Lord."

Malfoy obviously couldn't object to that, he just pressed his lips together before deciding to change the subject.

"Alright," he said before pulling out a time-turner. "I stole that one and modified it. We just have to modify the veil and –"

"I already did that," Luna said mildly. "It will send us to the right time."

"Good," Malfoy said. "If my calculations are correct, we'll end up somewhen between our second and third year at Hogwarts…"

"Why at that time?" Neville asked frowning.

"It's before we've fully grown into our magic," Harry said. "It should be easier since our magic won't fight against our new memories like it would if we were older…"

"Didn't you just talk about just sending us back to the incident?" Neville asked confused. "If our magic would fight –"

"It wouldn't," Malfoy said while rolling his eyes. "We're adults now and back then as well. Our magic wouldn't be able to sense the difference between us now and back then. That's not the case if we go back into a time when we're still growing in magic. Our magic will sense it then, so we cannot go at a time when we have the most magical grow, meaning fourteen onwards. So between second and third year is my aim."

"Why not earlier?" Luna asked interested.

Malfoy just raised an eyebrow.

"Do you want to have to relive your life from before Hogwarts?" He sneered.

Luna smiled at him dreamily.

"Actually I do," she said smiling.

"Super!" Malfoy said sarcastically. "Any other wishes we should discuss before going?"

Harry thought about it for a second, then he answered the question bluntly.

"I wish to kill your father, Malfoy," he said. "You alright with that?"

Malfoy's eyes widened and he spluttered, before obviously starting to think about the request.

"Alright," he finally declared. "If you truly want to…"

"Great!" Luna said enthusiastically, before grabbing the chain of the time-turner and wrapping it around all four of them. "Then let's go!"

And with that she got the time-turner spinning before pushing them all through the veil.

"Wait!" Malfoy cried. "What time did you actually set for the veil, Scamander?"

Regretfully, the question came a tat too late.

They fell through the veil and were plunged into the darkness beyond.

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 _Just a little idea_

 _Hope you liked it_

 _Ebenbild_


	4. Chapter 4

_**Disclaimer**_ _: I'm too young to be Rowling so there is sadly no way Harry Potter is mine…_

 _ **Placing:**_ _?_ _years after the first war_ _._

 _Challenge: 'Prompt of the day'. Prompt_ _: (_ _word) pretend_ _. 1451_ _words_ _._ _Gryffindor_ _,_ _Hogwarts_ _._

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sSsSsSsSs

 _ **CROWDED ROOM**_

sSs

The first thing Luna did when she woke up in the past, was looking out of the window. She didn't look out of the window because she wanted to know what was happening outside or something like that – no, she looked out of the window because that was what she had been doing before her future memories had changed her understanding of the world.

Luna blinked and watched the yellow grass in front of the Rookery, her home, bowing to the wind.

It was a very nice, surprisingly warm, late autumn's day.

For a moment, Luna marvelled about the oddly peaceful scenery outside of her window – then she turned her thoughts to a more pressing matter.

"Seems like Malfoy mixed up Ehwaz and Eihwaz when he rewrote the runes on the time-turner," she thought pensively. Then she shrugged.

"Doesn't matter," she decided. "Three weeks before Mummy's death or three years – not that important."

With that thought, she left her room in search of her mother.

She found her in her workroom.

"Mummy," she said, looking at her mother with innocent eyes. "May I go out and look for nargles?"

Her mother frowned at her.

"Aren't you a bit young to go and look for nargles?" Her mother asked concerned.

Luna thought about it.

Maybe, she decided, her mother might be right when it came to that. Luna was, after all, only six currently…

"I guess I might be a little bit young in body to look for nargles all on my own," she conceded. "But I promise you, Mummy, I'm old enough in soul to do so."

Her mother raised an eyebrow at that.

"And how did you accomplish that feat?" She asked her daughter surprised.

"By sending my memories back in time, Mummy, what else?" Luna answered sincerely.

Her mother thought that over.

"A valuable argument," she agreed finally.

"So I'm allowed to go and look for nargles?" Luna asked her mother interestedly.

Her mother smiled at her.

"As long as you don't leave through the gates of our property," she told her daughter smiling.

Luna thought that over.

In the end, she guessed that she could do as her mother wished her to do.

"Alright, Mummy," she said.

Her mother just smiled, so Luna stepped forward and hugged her.

"I missed you, Mummy," she said.

Her mother laughed and kissed her head.

"Go and play pretend," she told her daughter. "Just be in for supper in three hours, will you?"

Luna nodded earnestly.

"Of course, Mummy," she said and with that walked out of the house.

Her mother shook her head in amusement. Sometimes, Luna was way too much like her father!

"Memories from the future," the mother thought amused while shaking her head. "That child truly has a vivid imagination!"

With that thought, she went back to work. It wasn't as if it was dangerous for her six-year-old daughter to play in the garden. There was nothing that could hurt the child, so as long as the mother knew where the child was, she wasn't above leaving her daughter alone to play…

Meanwhile, Luna stopped in front of the gates to their property.

She looked back at the house, then she shrugged.

"It's Mummy's wish," she remembered herself. "Even if it's an odd request…"

She looked at the gate and tried to figure out if there was something special about it, that her mother didn't want Luna to leave through it. Luna found nothing.

She frowned.

"Maybe Mummy just doesn't like it to be opened," she thought, a little bit confused. It wasn't as if she truly remembered that much of her mother, after all. For all she knew, her mother had hidden something at the hinges of the gate that would fall out if they were opened…

"Oh, well," Luna thought. "Doesn't matter."

If her mother didn't want her to leave the premises through the gate, then Luna wouldn't. She was a good child, after all.

"Time to go and look for some nargles," Luna thought to herself.

And with that she positioned herself exactly in front of the gate, just to turn on the spot and apparate away.

She appeared again in one of the more shady corners of Knockturn Alley.

For a moment, she looked up and down the streets, then she ambled away, deeper into the alley.

Oddly enough, nobody even looked at the little, blond girl with the dreamy eyes. It was as if she was invisible for even the shadiest of Knockturn Alley's crowd. Hags, vampires, werewolves, dark wizards and witches they all crossed by the little girl, never even looking at her.

Even when the little girl bummed into some of them, they just growled and moved on as if Luna wasn't truly there – never noticing the odd things in the little girl's hands the moment after she had stumbled into them.

"People are always the same down here," Luna thought to herself while, after her last stumble, fastening the third leather purse to her belt. "Never paying attention."

With that she walked on, ignoring the fight that broke out when a thief behind her somewhere tried to steal the wallet from one of the other passers-by. People were quite careful with their money in this alley, after all…

"Absolutely never paying attention," she just thought and went on, even deeper into the alley.

In the end, Luna stopped at one of the inns deep down in the Alley.

She opened the door and peeked in.

The crowd in there was rough looking and consisted of the scum of the wizarding world.

Luna entered.

She circumnavigated the other guests until she found a dark corner and stopped at the bar stool standing there. She hoped on it and pulled out a galleon from one of her new purses.

Without saying anything she put it on the counter and a second later the barkeeper exchanged the money for some fire whiskey, not even asking if she was even old enough to drink.

Luna took the glass and seemingly sipped on her drink while staring dreamily into nothingness.

The people around her ignored her as if she wasn't there.

When a young man about three times Luna's age entered, he was accosted by the crowd. It seemed that his less dirty and ragged appearance had gained the people's attention.

Luna watched, unbothered by any of them, in her bright yellow summer dress with flowers on it, her big and dreamy blue-grey eyes and her very light blond hair. She looked like a little, adorable doll.

At the end of the three hours, she stood up from her place at the bar, sat down her empty glass and left.

Not even half an hour later she was back home just in time for supper.

"Well, Luna," her mother said smiling while filling her daughter's plate. "Did you find some nargles?"

Luna thought about it.

"I might," she said. "But I have to speak to Neville and the rest first. They'll have to tell me if I found some or not."

Her mother blinked surprised.

"Neville?" She asked confused.

Luna nodded.

"Neville Longbottom," she said. "He's my age and lives with his gran. We're friends, Mummy, you know?"

Her mother scratched her head.

"No, Luna," she said. "I didn't know that."

Luna blinked at her mother dreamily.

"Oh," she said. "Well, now you know."

Her mother nodded slowly, guessing that it couldn't harm her daughter if she had some interactions with the Longbottom family. The family was a well-known and good family, after all.

Still, for a moment Luna's mother wondered when Luna had met the Scion of House Longbottom, but then she shelved that thought. Her husband Xenophilius had forgotten her daughter often enough in Diagon Alley for the two children to meet on accident. Knowing Xeno, Luna's father hadn't even noticed that Luna had made a new friend while she had been alone in the alley…

"So you want to meet Neville and talk to him about the nargles you found?" the mother asked.

"I don't know yet if they are nargles, Mummy," Luna pointed out.

"Maybe-nargles, then," her mother corrected.

Luna thought about it.

"That would be helpful," she finally said thoughtfully.

Her mother nodded, smiled and resolved herself to write a letter to the Dowager Longbottom, asking her if Neville and Luna could meet again.

"This will be a hell of explaining to do," she thought dejectedly. "Sometimes I truly wish that Xeno wouldn't always be so scatter-brained when it comes to our daughter…"

Well, it wasn't the first odd situation Luna's mother had been in and she doubted it would be the last.

She had married a Lovegood, after all…

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 _Er... yes, the way back for those four didn't go fully as planned... xDD_

 _Anyway, Luna's PoV. I hope you like her - and maybe you already have an idea what her role will be in this new try to change the world... xD_

 _I hope you liked it_

 _Ebenbild_

 _P.S.: Comodo50 actually had quite a funny idea, but I fear that sticking them into random characters might sound funny - but didn't fit at all with my plot... so sorry, as funny as I thought it, there was no way to follow it through for this story._


	5. Chapter 5

_**Disclaimer**_ _: I'm too young to be Rowling so there is sadly no way Harry Potter is mine…_

 _ **Placing:**_ _6_ _years after the first war_ _._

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sSsSsSsSs

 _ **WET ROOM**_

sSs

The first thing Neville noticed after regaining his memories was the fish swimming up and down in front of his eyes.

The fish was silvery, big and was opening and closing its mouth slowly while gawking at Neville.

Neville blinked and followed the fish's tail with his eyes slowly.

For a moment he had to resist the urge to mimic the fish with opening and closing his mouth.

 _He would not gawk at a fish!_

Then he noticed something else important.

He was out of breath.

His lungs hurt as well…

"Huh," Neville thought with a frown. "Looks like I need to breathe again…"

The next thing he noticed was that he was wet, enclosed in water and about to drown with his clothes pulling him under.

For a moment, Neville was confused.

Then he connected the dots.

"Oh, Blackpool pier," he thought while casting a wandless bubble-head charm around his head. "Wait! Wasn't that sometime before Hogwarts?"

He mused over that important question some, before coming to the next important one.

"Wonder what time Luna send us to – and why she altered the plans?"

Neville frowned thinking about it for a second or two before he tried to remember when the whole Blackpool pier incident had happened.

"Summer," he remembered. "I was… _am_ … eight? No, seven… no, not yet. I'm six, going on seven in a few weeks."

Neville wondered if it made a difference if he was not yet seven in the grand scheme of things. He guessed not.

"Wonder why Luna decided to bring us back to when we were seven… or six," he mused. "Or was it Malfoy who did it?"

For a moment he searched his memories for a reason why Malfoy could have decided to bring them back that far…

"Whatever," he finally decided. "We're back, that's it."

He guessed that there were some more important things to think about right now.

Neville looked back at the fish in front of him.

The silvery fish opened its mouth and closed it, gawking at him.

"Wonder how long Uncle Algie will leave me under water," Neville mused.

Then another thought hit him.

"How long does it take until someone drowns?" He frowned, then shrugged it off. With his bubble-head charm, he wouldn't have to worry about drowning...

"Gran will come by some time in the future," he said to himself. "Guess that at least then Uncle Algie will go and look for me…"

Then he wondered how long it would take for his Uncle Algie to panic or even to notice that Neville wasn't coming up or trying to leave the water anymore. Neville was sure that he had to be beneath the water for at least three or four minutes already since he regained his memories…

"Maybe I should… naw, he'll live even if I don't do it," Neville decided his strategy. There was no way he would try to fight his way up towards the surface this time around.

Of course, Neville could come up from under the water and hex his uncle for daring to try and drown him – but there were far easier ways for his uncle to learn not to mess with Neville anymore.

"There's also something else I can do except of trying to get out of the water," Neville thought before making his way to the ground.

The fish still gawked at him and followed.

Neville looked at the fish, feeling a little bit weirded out by its behaviour, but in the end he shrugged and turned his attention to more interesting things.

There were some very interesting water plans down here…

Neville decided to use his time under water reasonably. He started to search the ground and when he found some interesting plants, he dug them out.

"Must be about seven to ten minutes since I gained my memories," Neville thought absentmindedly and then shrugged. "Whatever."

Either his Gran or his Uncle Algie would start to search for him some time in the future, Neville was sure about that. They wouldn't leave him where he was, definitely.

"I wonder if Gran will vivisect Uncle Algie or just right out tortures him to dead when she finds out that he threw me into the water and lost me," Neville wondered. Then he shrugged.

"Whatever," he decided. "He will think about his actions twice in the future – without me having to go all out trained-wizard on him…"

With that thought Neville returned to digging.

It took another ten minutes until he was forcefully dragged out of the water by a spell.

The moment Neville had left the water he saw his grandmother who was pointing the wand at him. She was pale, but there was also a furious glint in her eyes that told Neville that his Uncle Algie would have a hard time to convince her that he was allowed to go anywhere near Neville in the next time if ever.

Neville blinked at his Gran and then pocketed the last plants he had been able to dig out from the ground of the water.

"Neville?" Her voice was shaking a bit and Neville raised an eyebrow at her.

"Yes, Gran?" He asked.

"Are… are you well?" She asked and Neville could see the concern in her eyes. It seemed as if finding him still underwater had given her a shock.

"Should I be something else?" He asked her interestedly.

"I told you the boy is fine," his Uncle said in that moment. "He might be a squib but he's not a wimp."

Neville stared at his uncle.

Then he rolled his eyes at him and brushed down his wet clothes, freeing them from the water while being at it.

Neville was not too good with wandless magic, but simple spells like a drying charm or a bubble-head charm were well in his repertoire.

"Truly, Uncle," Neville said sighing while removing the last bit of water from his clothes. "I'm quite aware that you're old and maybe half-blind, but even you should have noticed long ago that there's no way that the word 'squib' fits me."

His uncle gawked, his eyes still staring at Neville's now dry robes.

Neville just raised an eyebrow at his uncle.

His grandmother on the other hand wasn't as speechless as Uncle Algie.

"Neville! Oh, my boy! You can do magic!" She said with tears in her eyes.

Neville just stared at his grandmother blankly.

"Of course I can," he said as a matter of fact. "I'm a wizard, Gran."

She blinked at him without understanding.

Neville just sighed.

"Honestly, Gran," he said. "I've been able to control my magic for years now. Do you truly think that I wouldn't have noticed by now if I hadn't any?"

"Control?" His Uncle asked, nearly choking on the word.

Neville just raised another eyebrow at his uncle.

"Please, Uncle," he said coolly. "How else do you think I survived beneath the water just now? If I wouldn't have magic, I would have long since drowned."

His uncle's eyes widened at those words.

Neville on the other hand turned towards his grandmother.

"We're going home now, I guess?" He asked her. "I found some plants I need to send a friend of mine while they're still fresh, you know."

His grandmother blinked, totally thrown by her shy grandson's behaviour.

"Friend?" She asked confused. "When did you make a friend, Neville?"

Neville thought about that question. In the end, he decided to be truthful – well, truthful enough for the circumstances.

"Today," he told her.

His grandmother frowned at him.

"A muggle, Neville?" she asked with concern in her voice.

"Of course not, Gran," Neville replied amused. "I wouldn't plan to send them plants with an owl if they were muggle, Gran. I know that muggles don't use owl-post."

"Then who?"

Neville just smiled at her.

"Don't worry, Gran, they're the right sort, you'll see," he replied amused. "We're going home now?"

His grandmother blinked again, clearly unsure what to do with her suddenly so confident and grownup grandson.

"Yes," she finally said slowly. "We're going home now, Neville."

"Good," Neville said nodding before coming up to her so that she could put her arm around him to apparate them both.

His Uncle Algie stared at them.

"Augusta?" He asked, looking even more confused than Neville's gran.

With that he reminded Neville that he was still there.

"Oh, Uncle," Neville said. "Before I forget it: You can forgo to come by for a while. I will make sure as the last heir of the main branch of the Longbottom family you will not be allowed to enter Longbottom manor for a while – not after trying to get the heir killed."

His uncle gawked.

"Nev…"

"Don't try it, Uncle," Neville interrupted him. "Even if I had been a squib I'm still the heir. Trying to kill me is nothing House Longbottom should acquiesce to. We are an Ancient and Noble House after all."

His uncle's eyes widened.

"Neville!" He said, sounding totally afraid now.

It was Neville's grandmother who spoke up this time around.

"He's right, Algie," she said coolly. "I won't object to his ruling. Neville might be young, but he is the heir – I am proud that he's already willing to accept his place in this world!"

And while Algie was still gawking, Neville's grandmother apparated them away.

Ten minutes later Neville had send his letter with one of the owls.

"Let's see how long Malfoy'll need to puzzle this one out," Neville said amused to himself. "Originally I planned on at least twelve years of sleep. Let's see how grumpy they are if we wake them early."

"Neville!" His Gran called in that moment. "Your mother's friend is on the floo. She wants to ask if you want to come by and talk to them!"

Neville frowned.

"Whose mother, Gran?" He asked a bit confused.

"Your friend's, Neville," the grandmother said sighing. "The friend you met today in Diagon Alley – young Miss Lovegood!"

"Ah!" Neville said amused. "Her... I'm coming, Gran!"

With that he was off to throw the world even deeper into chaos.

What a fun way to start a new try at life…

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 _Well, Neville's back as well. I hope you liked his entrance..._

' _Till next time._

 _Ebenbild_


	6. Chapter 6

_**Disclaimer**_ _: I'm too young to be Rowling so there is sadly no way Harry Potter is mine…_

 _ **Placing:**_ _6_ _years after the first war_ _._

 _Challenge: 'Prompt of the day'. Prompt_ _: (_ _location) nowhere_ _. 1682_ _words_ _._ _Gryffindor_ _,_ _Hogwarts_ _._

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sSsSsSsSs

 _ **NOWHERE ROOM**_

sSs

The first thing Harry saw when he woke up was darkness. Everything around him was black. Pitch black.

He frowned. Then he raised his hands and tried to feel where he was.

Nothing was around him.

Harry's frown deepened.

"I'm in the middle of nowhere," he concluded unhappily. "What the heck am I doing in the middle of nowhere?"

He sighed and then took another look around.

Nothing.

He stood up and walked into a random direction for a minute or two.

No walls, no light – nothing.

"Great," Harry said while pinching his nose. "Just great."

For a moment Harry wondered if closing his eyes and pretending that he wasn't in the middle of nowhere would help, then he gave up on hoping and decided to go for the jugular.

" _Ledger!_ "

For a moment, there was nothing – then a book was out of nowhere disposed into Harry's hands.

Harry frowned at the book.

"That's not what I wanted!" He complained.

The book flipped open and a voice was heard coming out of the pages.

"What else did you want, young master?" The book asked.

Harry frowned at it.

"If everything went as it should have gone, I should've been in the past and therefore I shouldn't be your master, Ledger," he pointed out to the book.

The book just snuggled into his hands as if it was a pet.

"But I'm lonely without you, master," it said in a whiny voice. "And you have not yet worked through the back-log in all that paperwork."

Harry frowned at the book unhappily.

"That back-log goes back to the eleven hundreds," he pointed out with an incredulous look at the book. "Of course I haven't yet been able to do it all!"

"Well, at least with me still here you don't have to start again in a few years," the book replied, its hopeful tone of voice quite audible.

"I wouldn't dare to own all of the Deathly Hallows if I'm going to be killed this time around," Harry said with a roll of his eyes. "Believe me, I'm not that idiotic twice."

"Doesn't matter," the book said pouting. "I'm not going anywhere without you!"

Harry sighed and rolled his eyes.

"How comes that ever since you showed up after I changed my job I've got the feeling that I'm married again?" He asked rhetorically.

The book pouted.

"You shouldn't be rejecting me, master," it pointed out. "You're Death! You've been killing off those that unbalance the world for years now! I can't imagine that you want to stop now that you can change more things than just react to the crumbling world around us…"

Harry thought that over.

He guessed, the book was right.

He hadn't come with the others into the past to rescue people. He had come to end those who shouldn't have continued living – basically fulfilling a duty he had fulfilled since the day he had tried to kill himself after his family had died.

Harry had been low, back then. His best friends, his family – everybody important to him had died that one hellish day that had changed the world. Only Harry who hadn't been there had survived.

It had been too much.

Nine months after that day, Harry had quit his job, written his will and then stolen the sword of Gryffindor to end his life.

He figured that the basilisk venom would at least give him some kind of fast and clean death. It wasn't as if he could use his wand to kill himself. A wand still owned by its master couldn't go against its master – and unfortunately trying to kill him even by his own hands counted as 'going against its master'.

So Harry had stolen the sword and tried to kill himself – just to find a new duty when instead of dying a book landed in his lap. It seemed that even with him never having touched the wand when he had the stone and the cloak, alone owning it had been enough to count him as the bearer of all three Hallows. Going to death with them in his possession had basically bound them to him.

So instead of dying, Harry had gotten a book thrown at him and the book had basically told him that he was the new Death and that he should stop whining and go to work.

Ever since then, Harry had found his new passion.

Of course, with Harry now in the past, theoretically he shouldn't have his beloved job yet – but Harry had planned to fulfil it anyway.

 _What could he say?_

 _Harry loved his job!_

"Alright," he said finally. "Isn't as if I hadn't planned to collect the Hallows again."

"You hadn't," the book interrupted pouting.

Harry rolled his eyes.

"Of course not," he said. "You're a menace! Where are we anyway, Ledger? Shouldn't I be somewhere at the Dursleys?"

The book in his hands pouted again.

"You're in your cupboard," it said.

Harry looked around with an incredulous look.

"Uhhuhh," his said sceptically. "My cupboard."

"Yes, master," the book replied petulantly.

Harry looked around again before walking another five steps into a random direction.

"I never noticed that my cupboard was that big…" He said sarcastically.

The book pouted again.

"Maybe you missed that when you were little, master?" It suggested.

Harry raised an eyebrow at the book.

"You suggest I missed that my cupboard was a nowhere-place big enough to fit the whole street with nothing in it, Ledger?" He said sceptically.

The book pouted again.

"I… might have changed it a bit to make you more comfortable," it finally admitted petulantly.

Harry frowned.

"Why?" he asked, not bothering to tell the book that a huge space of nothingness wasn't what he would call 'comfortable' – especially not when it was _black_ nothingness surrounding him.

 _Honestly! Ledger had absolutely horrible ideas when it came to comfortableness!_

Harry would have never chosen being nowhere to get comfortable – and definitely not a black nowhere like around him!

"Well… your cupboard was quite small…" the book hedged.

Harry rolled his eyes.

"I'm quite aware of that, thank you, Ledger," he said sarcastically. "Any other reason?"

For a moment, silence reigned.

Then the book pouted again.

"I just wanted to make your life at the Dursleys a little bit less stressful," it said. "I thought that connecting your cupboard to the in-between might help. You _are_ Death, after all. You are the strongest in the in-between!"

Harry rolled his eyes.

"I actually didn't plan to stay at my Aunt's," he said amused.

The book seemed to perk up at that.

"You were planning to kill them?" It asked interestedly.

Harry thought about it.

"Maybe," he finally said. "I actually planned to contact Luna first and ask her if she found some nargles. I know the old ones, of course… well, the future ones, that is… but there might be more that I am not aware of just yet."

The book snorted.

"Nargles," it repeated. "You've met that girl one time too many, master."

Harry shrugged unconcerned.

"What can I say?" He said amused. "As long as you don't learn to show me those that should die so that the world won't end, I will have to find my intelligence elsewhere."

The book pouted again.

"It's not my fault that I just show natural life-spans and endings as well as information about people you know the names of," it said. "You have some unreasonably high expectations, master! Do you know how many people are currently living on earth? I would burst like a balloon thanks to too much information!"

Harry just rolled his eyes and slapped the book close.

"Stop complaining," he said. "And change my cupboard back. If you don't, I'll be lost in this nowhere forever and there will be no killing at all!"

Not a second later, Harry tumbled to the ground in front of his cot inside the cupboard.

His hands were empty and when he looked at himself, he looked younger than anticipated.

"Huh," he said surprised. "I must be five or six or seven – or something like that at least."

It had been a long time that he was that small and he had never had too much cared about his age anyway, so being unsure was understandable.

"Guess Malfoy or Luna bollixed up the ritual," he mused. "Naw… not Luna – Malfoy. Luna would have known to compensate for Ledger… she would have exchanged Ehwaz with Eihwaz in her calculations for me."

Harry thought about that little fact for another second or two and then decided that it didn't actually matter.

"We're back," he thought aloud. "That's all I need to know. Now next question: To kill or not to kill?"

"Boy!" His aunt cried in that moment from outside of the cupboard. Harry guessed that she was in the kitchen. "Stop making such a ruckus! We want to eat in peace!"

Harry scratched his forehead.

"Yes, Aunt Petunia," he said.

Then he had a wonderful idea.

"Say, Aunt Petunia," he said. "Do you prefer to die right-out or to suffer for a while?"

"If you don't shut up now, boy, you won't get anything to eat at all for the next week!" Harry's Uncle Vernon roared as an answer.

Harry nodded slowly and seriously.

"Yes, Uncle Vernon," he said. "I understand. I will do as you wish."

Seems like he had some planning to do. He wouldn't want to disappoint his uncle after all – not after basically been given permission to go ahead with his plans…

"Well," Harry reasoned. "As least what could count as his permission. Uncle Vernon's demands were always a bit hard to understand, after all."

Harry thought about that fact for a moment.

"Might be the weight," he concluded. "Maybe I should help him to get rid of it…"

Yep, Harry had some planning to do. But he had time – the others, Harry was sure, would wait for him until he was done.

"Neville did it as well, after all," Harry thought.

 _Oh! He hadn't had that much fun in ages!_

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 _And here comes Harry – a surprising short time after the last chapter. But well, he came and demanded to be written now, so here he is. I hoped you liked him in action (more or less)._

' _Till next time_

 _Ebenbild_


	7. Chapter 7

_**Disclaimer**_ _: I'm too young to be Rowling so there is sadly no way Harry Potter is mine…_

 _ **Placing:**_ _6_ _years after the first war_ _._

 _Challenge: 'Prompt of the day'. Prompt_ _: (_ _action) shopping for a dress_ _. 2000_ _words_ _._ _Gryffindor_ _,_ _Hogwarts_ _._

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sSsSsSsSs

 _ **SHINY ROOM**_

sSs

The first thing Draco spotted when he opened his eyes in the past was a golden glint in the hands of a woman not too far away from him.

 _Oh, shiny!_

Draco shook his head.

He was in the past – and from his surrounding somewhere out in the open – there was no way that he…

The golden glint again sparkled in the sunlight.

 _So shiny…_

The woman turned her hand with the small key in it to hand the key to the cashier.

 _Cashier._

 _Past._

 _Right – no stealing, Draco!_

Draco tried to turn away from the woman, but his eyes were fixed on the key in her hands.

"My cohorts will kill me if I'm found stealing from innocent people," He hold himself. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. He might not be able to turn away, but at least he was able to close his eyes so that he didn't have to see the key anymore…

"Draco, dearest," a long forgotten voice suddenly spoke up and Draco forced himself to not only open his eyes but turn around as well.

The woman who had spoken to him was his mother.

In his future she had died barely four years after the second war. She had fallen ill while being stuck in Azkaban for six months for her crimes and had never recovered.

"Yes, mother?" He said, turning around and looking at the woman.

While turning, he got a good look at the mirror not too far from him and he nearly stopped dead at what he saw in there.

Blond, slicked back hair.

Grey eyes.

And _baby-fat_ on his cheeks!

 _By Merlin and Morgana, how old was he?_

 _Five?_

 _Six?!_

 _He couldn't be seven!_

 _Or if he was, he had to be it barely…_

Draco wanted to groan.

"What do you think of this dress, darling?" His mother asked and turned around to show off the dress she was wearing.

It was blue with silver highlights and Draco remembered it well. His mother had worn it one time and then never again after the press had ridiculed it as 'too simple for a Malfoy'.

Draco had loved the dress back then and even now he thought that his mother looked fabulous in it. Regretfully he knew that his mother would never wear it again after the press ridiculing her for it.

Draco hated Rita Skeeter just for that alone.

"Fabulous, mother," he said anyway, before adding some valuable advice. "But if you buy it, you should ask them about changing it a bit."

His mother looked a little bit surprised that Draco had decided to add his second sentence – of course, back then Draco might have liked going out with his mother, but he had never truly been interested in fashion before.

"I guess that I know now more about it is all Astoria's fault," he mused. His wife had always wanted his exact opinion on her dresses and he had learned fashion just to escape her wrath he would encounter if he just told her she 'looked beautiful'.

"Change it how, darling?" His mother asked interested.

"It needs a bit more… style," Draco finally settled on. "Maybe some pearls and embroidery on the left skirt part. Both done in a bluish silver, nearly invisible, but there when you look at it in certain light. It could also use some of this nearly see-through silk in a bluish silver also embroidered as sleeves instead of the ones it has right now."

His mother looked thoughtfully at her own reflection.

"This is some intriguing advice, darling," she said while still looking at herself. "Maybe I should talk to the seamstress about changing the dress a bit for me."

Draco nodded and smiled at her – that was the moment he saw the golden glint of a vault key again from the corner of his eyes.

 _Oh, shiny!_

"No, Draco," he reminded himself. "You're not out on the prowl today."

Sadly, it wasn't that easy.

Within the last few years, Draco had always been out in Diagon Alley to steal from those who deserved it. He hadn't stolen from anybody else, but Death Eater sympathisers where always there and he always had at least taken one of their keys and emptied their vault before they even noticed the key missing.

Luckily, Gringotts had the philosophy that if you gave your key to another person, said person had full access to your vault.

Draco had long since learned how to mimic it so that the key showed 'willingness' to the goblins who checked it. It had taken some years for Draco to crack their system, but he had – and they hadn't been even close to finding out in the future.

As long as he was fast and the family didn't go to Gringotts first to declare the key stolen, he was safe…

The key gleamed again in the sunlight.

"I'm going to talk to the seamstress for a while, Draco," his mother said. "Behave."

Draco fixated on his mother again.

She was still looking into the mirror, but now there was a determined expression on her face. Draco had seen that expression before. Obviously she had decided to head his advice and ask for some changes on the dress she was currently wearing.

Draco was sure that this time around Rita Skeeter would have a hard time to call his mother's dress 'simple' when the seamstress was done with it.

Then he was again distracted by the gleam of a key.

 _Oh, this was torture!_

Draco definitely should find another place to stand!

"I hope you didn't remove the funds for this ugly dress you wanted to add to my pile as well from my vault," a snooty female voice said in that moment.

"Of course not," the cashier replied and Draco stared at the woman who had her Gringotts key in her hand.

 _He knew that woman – but where from?_

In that moment his mother returned and gestured to him to follow her.

"Come on, Draco," she said. "Let's pay for the dress and then we can go to the quidditch shop if you want."

"Coming, mother," Draco replied automatically, still musing over the woman who was arguing with the cashier.

Then his mother reached the other two women.

"Mrs Parkinson," she greeted the woman arguing with the cashier.

"Mrs Malfoy," the woman replied snootily.

Draco's mother forced a smile.

"How's young Pansy?" She asked and finally Draco knew where to put that woman.

 _Pansy's mother._

"Figures," he thought to himself with a hidden grimace. Instead he stepped forward next to his mother and greeted the woman politely when his mother gestured him to do so.

The woman returned his greeting and put away her key.

 _Shiny!_

"No, Draco," he reminded himself. "The others might not be happy if I start something without talking to them first –"

On the other hand it was Pansy's mum – and the whole family definitely deserved it…

 _Also, that key was so shiny!_

While his mother and the woman made some stilted conversation, Draco pouted next to them.

 _He wanted to have something shiny!_

 _But the others…_

 _But then, it was Parkinson!_

 _Still the others…_

 _Parkinson!_

"You know that you and the others might need some funds to change whatever you want to change," Draco reminded himself.

"But the others might have planned something else already," he thought. "I promised Longbottom that he would be the one to decide on our strategy. I have to wait until he contacts me before doing anything –"

 _But Parkinson!_

 _NO! Not without approval of the others! You swore that to yourself!_

 _But it was Parkinson – the family who was responsible for the death of his own!_

 _Still, the others first…_

 _Parkinson!_

Then the woman left and Narcissa Malfoy paid for her altered dress.

"Come on, Draco," she said. "I take you to the quidditch shop. I still have to go and buy a new cauldron, but I guess you're old enough to stay inside the shop alone for a few minutes – or do you want to accompany me?"

"No, mother," Draco said. "I promise I will be at the quidditch shop when you return!"

His mother touched his shoulder in approval and then took him to the shop where she left him.

Draco smiled and held up a shiny key towards the sunlight before he left the shop and went to Gringotts.

There he stepped up to the first free teller.

"Excuse me," he said. "I want to open a business vault and transfer some funds to it."

The goblin raised an eyebrow at him.

"Aren't you a bit young to open any kind of vault?" The goblin asked.

Draco returned the raised eyebrow.

"Will you stop me just because I'm underage?" He replied. He hoped that they wouldn't but they were goblins so maybe they would…

"If you were our own young it would be understandable," the goblin asked. "But for a wizard child you seem to be a bit early. I remember that you don't leave your parents until you're eleven years old."

Draco shrugged.

"Then I'm different," he said. "So what?"

The goblin thought about it for another moment. Then the goblin nodded.

"I will open your vault," he said. "But I insist on monitoring your endeavour like I would with my own young. If it is a success, I will treat you like every other business man, if it isn't I will go to your parents, explain to them what you did and demand to be recompensed for my time."

Draco thought about that for a moment.

Then he remembered Harry's declaration and his own agreement to the murder of his father.

 _Besides, they might need some money to act – and Gringotts keys were so shiny!_

"Alright," he said shrugging.

"So what name do you want to have for your business?" The goblin asked. "And who's name do you want to add for access?"

"Access to Harry James Potter, Neville – I don't know, maybe Frank – Longbottom and Luna – whatever – Lovegood as well as Draco Lucius Malfoy," Draco replied. "For the name… we haven't decided on one yet – will this be a problem?"

The goblin shook his head.

"As long as you have a name when you start your business, it should be no problem. I will simply put it in your name for now and mark it as 'unnamed'. If you don't take too long, naming it won't force you to pay for a name-change."

Draco narrowed his eyes.

"What's 'too long'?" He asked suspiciously.

"A month," the goblin replied while showing his teeth.

Draco guessed that they should manage to name it within the next month.

"Alright," he said. "Let's do it like that."

With that, he handed over the key.

Ten minutes later he left the bank with his own key on a chain around his neck and three more for the same vault in his pocket, the one for the Parkinson vault handed over to Gringotts so that they could hand it back. It would cost the Parkinson's a fee because it was treated like a key-return after a loss – but Draco had told them that Mrs Parkinson said that she didn't mind and that she was giving them the money as a present with no wish for them to return it.

The Parkinson key in Draco's hands had reflected that wish.

At the end of the day, the Parkinson would be poor without any way to get back their money because they 'donated it willingly'.

Draco didn't feel guilty at all.

"Mother!" He greeted his mother joyfully when she came to pick him up from the quidditch shop. "Can I have _'Quidditch through the ages'_? I want to send it to a friend for his birthday!"

His mother just smiled indulgently and bought him the book.

Not even ten minutes later they were home and Draco went to wrap the book as a present.

Inside the book he put a note and a key.

 _So shiny – and all theirs!_

Then he called for his house-elf.

"Dobby!" He said. "I want you to deliver this present to the psychopath."

 _Oh, what a fun he would have now that he was back!_

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 _And here comes Draco – and it's my friend's fault that he's obsessed with shiny objects. I didn't plan to write him that way before hearing my friend's 'shiny' comment! Honestly! Also, Draco always could hold a grudge – even if his revenge wasn't that particular when he was young the first time around… xDD_

 _Well, I hope you liked him anyway._

' _Till next time_

 _Ebenbild_


	8. Chapter 8

_**Disclaimer**_ _: I'm too young to be Rowling so there is sadly no way Harry Potter is mine…_

 _ **Placing:**_ _29_ _years after the war_ _._

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sSsSsSsSs

 _ **GREEN ROOM**_

sSs

"How about I show you the greenhouses?" Neville asked his guest smiling.

His grandmother frowned at him for a second, but when the girl he had been talking to started to smile, his grandmother's frown vanished.

"Sure," Luna said with bright eyes. "Let's see if we find some Crumpled-Horned Snorkacks?"

At that, confusion showed on Neville's grandmother's face, but before she could ask about the magical creatures Luna had been talking about, Neville grabbed the younger girl and pulled her out of the house.

"Let's go and see about those," Neville said smiling.

Luna's eyes sparked at that and she followed Neville out of the house, a skip in her step.

"So," Neville said slowly the moment they entered one of the greenhouses. "What do we do?"

Luna smiled at him and twirled.

"Did you contact Draco Malfoy already?" She asked him interestedly with her dreamy voice.

Neville blinked.

"Why do you want to –?"

"I may have found some nargles," Luna explained, and yet didn't explain at all, with an absent smile. "Will you help me to sort them out?"

Neville frowned.

"Nargles?" He repeated confused. "What do you mean with 'nargles'?"

Luna blinked, her dreamy eyes nearly focusing for a second and crooked her head.

"Nargles," she said slowly. "What else?"

Neville's eyebrows narrowed while he thought that statement over. Oddly enough, after all his time working with Luna in his seventh year, he could nearly grasp her logic.

 _Nargles._

It somehow sounded… _sane…_ to him.

 _Still…_

"Why nargles?" He asked.

Luna smiled dreamily.

"Nargles will steal our future away," she said softly and patiently, treating him as if he should know that. "Of course we're all searching for nargles."

Neville rubbed his nose, thinking.

"Alright," he said finally, deciding to play along – which was sometimes the saner idea when it came to Luna. "Nargles."

Then he hesitated and thought it over some more.

There was, after all, always a reason why Luna insisted on something – even if Neville didn't always grasp that reason until later in their conversations.

 _Maybe, it wasn't the nargles that were the actually important thing to ask about,_ Neville mused. _Maybe it was the search itself that he should start to understand at first…_

"What exactly did you find?" He asked interestedly, deciding to add to his current level of knowledge through another approach of Luna's quirks.

Luna smiled at him, her eyes unfocused and looking at a point far beyond him and the glass-walls of his greenhouse.

"Some very interesting things," she said. "I might have to contact Harry Potter earlier that I expected if you agree with my find…"

Neville frowned, but nodded as if understanding her particular brand of thinking.

"Anything you need to talk about?" He asked her, fully aware that Luna would always share with him what she deemed important for him to know.

Luna crooked her head again, clearly thinking it over with interest in her eyes.

"There might be some I'm not too sure about," she said slowly. "But then, I have to start anew again in this time. There are some possible nargles alive that were long since dead in our time, you know?"

Neville nodded slowly.

 _Nargles._

 _Of course._

Suddenly, as if a switch had been turned in his head, Neville finally truly understood what Luna was talking about.

 _What an intelligent girl._

Neville never understood why other had any trouble understanding her at all. She was always quite clear when it came to her explanations, after all…

"The seniors, isn't it?" He said amused.

"Exactly," Luna said airily. "And some of them aren't at all that imprisoned in Azkaban as they made us believe."

"Escape or cover-up?" Neville instantly wanted to know.

Luna shrugged.

"A bit of both, maybe," she said. "Maybe a wrackspurt infestation as well. I haven't been able to check on that, yet. An overview of potential nargles seemed to be more important for now."

Neville nodded thoughtfully.

"It definitely has its benefits," he said.

"It does," Luna said airily. "And some of the potential nargles are ripe for reaping already. I'm sure that Harry will be pleased the moment I tell him."

Oddly enough, Neville mused, that sentence was making perfect sense to him.

 _Seemed as if he had have too much exposure to Harry and Luna within the past few weeks..._

Neville shrugged it off to concentrate on more important things.

"Ah!" Neville said nodding slowly. "What nargles?"

"Mulciber," Luna said with a smile. "Maybe Rosier as well."

The last one wasn't a name Neville had been expecting to hear at all.

He blinked surprised.

"Rosier," he repeated curiously. "I thought that possible nargle was dead."

Luna hummed noncommittally.

"He is," she said amused. "Later on. But right now, he's still a nasty little nargle."

Neville laughed at that amused.

"You want to ensure that he's finding his end faster this time around?" He asked interestedly.

Luna just smiled dreamily.

"Harry Potter has something against people that kill children," she said softly smiling. "He will insist that we turn him into a nargle as soon as possible."

"Anyone else?" Neville asked amused.

Luna inclined her head.

"Several," she said. "Some of them we might have to take a closer look at before deciding if they're a nargle or not. I planned to send the list to Harry Potter. He should have no trouble to tell me if we turn them into nargles or if we won't."

Neville frowned.

"If they stood out to _you_ , Luna then –"

"Then they're either Harry Potter's nargles or Draco Malfoy's wrackspurs," she said smiling. "I don't usually decide which one they are. Harry Potter is the one who does."

Neville raised an eyebrow at that.

That sounded oddly like a conspiracy.

He wasn't quite sure if he liked the thought of Malfoy and Harry having worked together in the future before…

 _Actually, no._

Neville was absolutely sure that if they _had_ done so, the world had long since burned.

"I'm quite sure that neither Harry nor Draco worked in any way together until now," he pointed out to his friend.

Luna just smiled at him.

"Of course not," she said as if it should all be a well-known fact to Neville. "Harry never considered to give the wrackspurts to someone else until now. Don't worry. It will be a lot more effective with both of them working together this time around."

 _That was one way to put it…_

Neville snorted.

"I'm not actually that worried about teamwork," he said slowly.

 _Well, he was, but not in the way that Luna implied._

Neville actually _was_ concerned by the idea of Malfoy and Harry working together on anything…

Luna nodded.

"Of course not," she said nodding earnestly. "This time you're even able to direct them and help to coordinate their work. It should ease our work further and ensure that we will change the things we plan to change."

 _That didn't sound better at all…_

 _Also…_

Neville frowned.

"I'm a herbology teacher," he pointed out slowly. "I'm not qualified to –"

"And I'm a magizoologist," Luna said dreamily. "That doesn't change the fact that I'm ultimately better in finding out facts than Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy."

Neville wasn't quite sure if he could object her in that, considering that Harry had obviously deferred to her when –

That though stopped him in his tracks and his eyes widened.

"Wait! You ensured that Harry had his intelligence when he went after those people in the future?!" he cried surprised.

Luna just crooked her head dreamily.

"Of course, Neville Longbottom," she said as if he should have known this. "He doesn't have enough intelligence otherwise to find his nargles. He's my friend, so of course I help him when he asks."

Neville gawked at her, then he snorted.

"And there I was thinking how hard it would be to ensure that we can change anything without any knowledge of the differences," he said amused about himself.

Luna just blinked at him with dreamy eyes.

"I'm not sure why you worried," she said confused. "I was the one to give you the most information about the Carrows in our seventh year as well."

Neville couldn't object that.

"I wonder what happened to those two," he mused instead.

Luna just shrugged.

"They turned into nargles about three years ago when they fled Azkaban without anyone noticing," she replied dreamily. "I've not found them yet in this time, but I'm sure they will be turned into nargles the moment I find them. Harry will ensure that."

 _Nargles._

 _Targets._

 _Harry's targets._

Neville remembered the red room and the body as a lamp.

He tried to imagine the Carrows in its place.

 _It painted a surprising peaceful picture…_

 _Yep,_ Neville guessed that it was a reasonable approach when it came to those monsters and nodded contently.

"Alright," he said. "Anything else I need to know?"

Luna thought that over.

"We need a plan of action, soon," she said slowly, her dreamy eyes looking anywhere but him. "Maybe a staged plan to ensure that nobody will question the changes until it's actually too late to change anything?"

Neville imagined the chaos that would ensure if they gave Harry and Draco a list of targets to take down.

He was reasonable sure that both would be done with the whole list within a week.

 _Not a good idea if you wanted to keep a stable government…_

Neville guessed that Luna's idea definitely sounded reasonable if you considered the alternative.

It was when Luna continued to stare at the plants behind him that he understood what she wanted him to do.

"Wait!" He said slowly. "You want _me_ to compose that plan?"

"Of course," Luna said smiling. "You're our strategist. Your plans have always succeeded."

"Just because I was lucky in the past –"

Luna glared at him mildly.

"I'm quite sure that staging that coup that not only imprisoned all those terrorists but also gave us quite a few new laws was anything but an accident," she told him her dreamy silver eyes narrowing at him. "Was it?"

Neville guessed that if he said 'yes' at that point, he would be subjected to a true Luna-glare – which was a frightening experience he definitely didn't want to repeat any time in his future.

"No," he sighed. "Of course the whole thing was planned. But it was quite simple –"

"Just do it again," Luna said amused. "It should be as easy as it has been before."

Neville blinked at those words.

He thought her statement over.

 _Nargles._

 _Wrackspurts._

 _Targets._

 _Harry._

 _Draco._

 _The red room…_

In the end he nodded slowly.

"Hmm," he said while drawing out his words. "You might be right."

He stopped speaking and thought about it some more.

 _Harry's nargles._

 _Draco's wrackspurts._

 _Luna's creature hunt…_

"Yes," he said finally. "You're right. It should be easy."

"Exactly," Luna said, sounding quite pleased with his answer.

Neville smiled at his friend before looking around his greenhouse.

It wasn't one of the largest ones on the premise, but it was one of the most beautiful ones. It inhabited flowers from all over the wizarding world and several were currently in full bloom – of course, several were deadly as hell as well.

"I send Malfoy some plants and some information," he finally said, seemingly changing the topic randomly. "If he's truly as good as he always tells everyone he is, we should have a chance of a political change at least a year or two before we even leave for Hogwarts."

Luna hummed noncommittally.

"I guess if I have enough information, I will be able to determine how to work towards that change without anybody truly understanding what's going on until it's too late," Neville continued.

Luna nodded and smiled airily.

"What about your grandmother?" She asked lightly.

Neville thought about that suggestion.

"No," he said slowly. "She's too well known and too set in her ways. She won't be able to change her ways enough that we can change everything we want to even on just a political level."

Luna hummed.

"Maybe I can convince Mummy," she suggested.

"Maybe," Neville said, then shrugged. "I will come back to you for that. Give me some time to work out our plan, then I will tell you what we will actually do."

Luna smiled at him.

"So we will contact the other two to set up a meeting?" She asked interestedly.

"Would be best," Neville agreed readily. "It wouldn't do to work out our full plan without those two present, after all."

Luna nodded with understanding in her dreamy eyes.

"You're right," she said. "It wouldn't do to work out a plan without those that will be the ones to ensure that it will succeed."

"Exactly," Neville said and Luna handed him a list.

He frowned and looked at the list.

"What?" he asked confused, but Luna just smiled.

"Potential nargles," she said. "I will send the list to Draco Malfoy and Harry Potter as well, but you as our strategist should be aware about it, too. Harry Potter will get us better information about them and Draco Malfoy might be able to determine which ones are the more important nargles for now. The moment you have this information, it should be easy to construct our plan of action."

Neville pursued the list in interest.

"That might take a while," he commented slowly.

Luna nodded.

"Of course," she said airily. "But I'm sure that when we're finally old enough to attend Hogwarts we might be far enough down that list that it will be child's play to end it within two to four years…"

Neville gawked at the fay like girl in front of him.

"Alright," he finally squeaked, slightly overwhelmed with the years of planning it would take for them to reach their goal of a changed future. "Alright. Seven years – we should be able to do that in that time."

"Of course we should," Luna said airily. "Seven is always a good number when it comes to bringing down a Dark Lord and his prejudiced following of pureblood fanatics."

Neville blinked again.

Then he nodded again slowly.

"I guess you're right," he said faintly. "It definitely should be enough time to bring them down."

Luna smiled at him sweetly.

"Very well," she said. "And now let's go searching for Crumpled-Horned Snorkacks. I'm tired of talking about unimportant things."

Neville nodded.

This time around he definitely had no trouble at all when it came to following her logic.

"A splendid idea," he said. "Let's do this."

So the rest of their afternoon together they spend hunting the grounds of Longbottom Manor for creatures they both knew were only found in South America.

But then, both Neville and Luna were quite convinced that even if there was no way of finding a Crumpled-Horned Snorkack, their search still wasn't in vain at all.

"After all," Luna reasoned. "Without looking, how can we be sure that there truly aren't any here?"

 _Oh, what a fun they had that afternoon!_

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 _Luna and Neville met and talked about nargles… I hope you liked their first, tentative planning… xD_

' _Till next time_

 _Ebenbild_


	9. Chapter 9

_**Disclaimer**_ _: I'm too young to be Rowling so there is sadly no way Harry Potter is mine…_

 _ **Placing:**_ _6_ _years after the first war_ _._

 _Challenge: 'Prompt of the day'. Prompt_ _: (_ _expression) a punch in the eye_ _. 2500_ _words_ _._ _Gryffindor_ _,_ _Hogwarts_ _._

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sSsSsSsSs

 _ **SILENT ROOM**_

sSs

Draco Malfoy was lying hidden behind the sofa on the floor, contemplating his life.

 _Well, alright, he was contemplating the nicely shiny key he had tucked away in the book he was holding – but then, keys like that were a nice part of life in Draco's opinion…_

So Draco Malfoy was lying on the stone floor behind the sofa, contemplating his life.

Of course, if his parents or anybody else would have found him there, he would have denied anything of that kind.

 _But then, if his parents would have found him – Draco would have denied that he was lying comfortably on the stone floor as well… no matter if he was caught in the act or not!_

He had a book about quidditch with him and had it open somewhere in the middle – but he hadn't read a sentence since he opened it.

He didn't need to.

The key in between the pages shone nicely in the candle light and that was everything Draco needed…

 _So shiny!_

So instead of actually reading, he had made himself comfortable on the spell-softened stone floor and was staring in the air.

He was lying on his chest, the feet in the air and his eyes looked emptily at the other side of the room at the floor-length, dark-red curtains of the window in the living room, just to skip now and then to the key within the pages.

 _Shiny!_

It had been just yesterday that he had stolen Parkinson's fortune and send the other keys to the other conspirators.

Now he was staring into space or at the key, for once contemplating his own feelings and feeling unsure about them…

"It somehow doesn't make me feel better knowing that that family suffers right now," he thought unhappily. "On the other hand I'd do it again and again if I had the opportunity…"

 _Maybe, he should ask Longbottom or Potter for the memory of Parkinson and her cronies…_

He picked up the key absentmindedly and made it sparkle in the candle light.

 _So shiny…_

"Astoria wouldn't be happy with me if she knew what I did with my life after her death," Draco thought with a frown on his face. "She'd berate me for not moving on, for not letting go…"

Yet, Draco knew that there had been no way for him to let it go as long as he hadn't had his revenge. And even now, after knowing that Potter had done away with his wife's and son's murderers and Draco himself had stolen nearly the whole fortune and any other way of easy income from the family in question – it simply wasn't enough.

Draco's gaze intensified.

It was a wonder that the key didn't shrink into itself, feeling intimidated…

"Why?" Draco contemplated.

He had wanted revenge.

 _On Parkinson, on the others – on all those that had even just potentially a hand in his family's murder…_

He had wanted that revenge for years now!

And he had gotten it _– so why wasn't he happy?_

 _What else did he want?_

"I don't want Astoria and Scorpius back," he thought with a frown. "Well, no – I'd love to have them back! But not if that means that they'd have to live in this wretched world! I wish I could have them back in a world undivided and safe – but that's not going to happen…"

Draco turned the key again so that it sparkled in the light.

 _So shiny…_

He had long since accepted the fact – as much as he hated it – that his Astoria and Scorpius would never return.

By returning to this point in time it was actually nearly a given that he wouldn't get back the two people he had loved the most in the whole world…

"Even if I'd marry Astoria again," Draco thought darkly. "She wouldn't be _my_ Astoria and Scorpius…"

 _No, he couldn't think about his son!_

Even if everything happened like the first time around, they wouldn't be the same – _and that was unacceptable for Draco!_

 _So he wouldn't even try to get them back…_

"But then what else is there that I want?" Draco asked himself frowning while turning the key in his hand around again so that it sparkled.

 _Shiny…_

Before he could ponder the thought further, his parents entered the living room.

Draco frowned at them and then hid the key inside the book before flicking a newly invented hiding spell into existence. He had not yet tested it, but it should shield him well enough and at least like that Draco could actually see how much energy it took him to maintain the spell…

Draco's father looked as if he had just returned home – clad in the suit and robes as he was with his cane in his hands – and his mother looked a bit concerned at the pale face his father was sporting.

For a moment Draco wondered if Potter had already managed it into the magical world and was now wreaking havoc out there…

Potter, after all, was known to be creative and his father might have seen his work while visiting one of his associates…

Then his father spoke up and that thought blew out of the window.

"Where's Draco?" His father asked, obviously wanting to shield his seven-year-old son from whatever news he had brought home.

Draco frowned, then his eyes fell onto the lordship ring of his father on said man's left hand and for a second he was distracted.

 _Oh…! Shiny…_

Draco's mother frowned.

"I think he might be in his room," she said. "I haven't seen him for quite some time. You know him – I guess he has found a nice place and is reading whatever quidditch book he made me buy him yesterday."

Lucius nodded at that, then drew his wand and closed and locked the room, before casting a charm to reveal the persons inside the room for good measure.

His lordship ring reflected the light of the candles.

Draco couldn't help himself and followed the sparkling bit of jewellery with his eyes.

 _Shiny…_

He had never known that a lordship ring could be nearly as shiny as a Gringotts' key…

Draco wondered if he just felt like that because it was the Malfoy ring and it had been his in the future. Then he shook off the thought to watch the ring a bit more.

 _So shiny…_

Sadly, thanks to his distraction by shiny things he was actually too late to recognise the human revealing spell his father cast on the room…

 _Not good!_

The charm hit Draco's wandless hiding charm before giving Draco's father the feedback that the room was currently empty except of him and his wife.

 _Huh?_

 _Seemed like Draco was a genius, after all…_

He had watched the charm hitting his shield and hummed silently when he saw it acting as if Draco wasn't there. Then he nodded to himself before pulling out a piece of parchment from inside his book and a quill, marking down the new facts he had learned about the spell he had finished inventing just hours ago.

"Test One, completed," Draco whispered to himself.

He hadn't actually planned to test the spell in action yet, but he definitely didn't mind to fasten up his research on the new spell.

Not that he had planned that – it was just… _why did the Malfoy lordship ring have to be so shiny?!_

When he had marked down the oddity the spell had with a revealing charm, he packed away the parchment and quill again and returned to seemingly reading, while actually listening to the conversation taking place not too far from him.

"It's odd, Narcissa," Lucius Malfoy said in that moment to his wife, concern in his voice. "There's no trace of the one who took the money, no lead –"

 _Ah! So it wasn't Potter who had given his father grief…_

For a moment, Draco wondered if he should feel guilty, but then he shrugged it off. It wasn't as if his father hadn't given him enough trouble for a life-time in the future.

 _Things like that were called Karma – weren't they?_

Draco frowned in thought and then slowly slid forward so that he could actually see his parents.

Thanks to being distracted, he had actually missed the first exchange of words between his parents, but even without it, he could accurately guess what it was about.

But now, that he thought about it further, he wasn't even sure how his father had gotten involved in that whole thing.

It wasn't as if Draco had done anything to his father directly, after all…

His eyes caught the glint of the lordship ring on his father's finger.

 _Yet…_

It was just Parkinson.

And it had just been a tiny little thing to do – nothing worth to be interested in…

 _So why did it concern his father?_

When he was finally far enough to the side so that he could spy further around the sofa at his parents so that he didn't only see his father's hands gesturing, he saw his mother frowning.

"But if the key was recalled by the goblins into their lost and found – shouldn't there have been a search being conducted to show who had the key last?" She asked with a furrowed eyebrow. "It's always like that if people lose their key, after all, or if – Merlin forbid it! – it was stolen!"

Draco's mother, sadly, was right with that observation. It had been a major set-back to Draco's activities when he started them in the future…

But then, Draco was nothing but creative when it came to shiny things…

Lucius sighed and nodded, confirming her words as well.

"I'm well aware of those facts, Narcissa," he said unhappily. "Yet the goblins' spell doesn't tell us anything. It's as if the thief in question walked into Gringotts, used the key as if he had been given permission to use it and then handed it over to the goblin in question to return to the owner…"

Narcissa's frown deepened while Draco had to suppress a snicker.

 _How wonderfully accurate his father had described Draco's actions!_

"How high is the chance of exactly that happening?" Draco's mother in that moment asked concerned.

"Below zero percent," Lucius replied with a shake of his head. "The whole thing would involve fooling a goblin spell – and as much as I hate those creatures even I have to admit that fooling their spells is next to impossible."

Again, his father's ring sparkled in the candle light.

 _Shiny!_

Draco suppressed his usual reaction to something shiny from where he lay and again forced himself to seemingly return to reading one of his new books about quidditch.

 _There was a nice, shiny key in there…_

Then his father's words hit home and Draco had to suppress an amused snort as well.

 _Next to impossible – what did his father know!_

"Still!" Narcissa said in that moment. "We all know that every key being lost by the owner will be recalled to the goblins either after it being requested or after the thief's first try to use it somewhere else! And if the thief goes to the goblins they're easily able and contracted to check the key for the agreement of the owner!"

 _How right his mother was!_

 _But then, she hadn't raised an idiot – even if Draco had to admit that it had taken him a long while and a war to actually grow up and use his intellect…_

"The goblins," Draco's father sneered in that moment. "Assured that no breach of contract happened. Considering that the aurors would have been automatically alerted if a breach would have been deliberately done by the goblins, I fear we _will_ have to believe those creatures."

Draco suppressed another snicker, not daring to look up from his shiny key.

 _Draco was not stealing his father's lordship ring tonight!_

So instead he wondered how his father would react if he knew that from the goblins' point of view the money had been taken away quite legally?

Draco guessed that if he'd ever try and give his father a heart-attack – this would be the way…

"Then how do you explain the Parkinsons' troubles?" Narcissa asked with a frown. "If the goblins called the key back as Mrs. Parkinson requested, shouldn't they have used a spell on the key to ensure that nobody unauthorized used it?"

"They did," Lucius said with a grimace. "They even repeated it when the Parkinson demanded it. _Nothing_. There was no unauthorized transaction from the key."

Draco suppressed another snicker and hid his face behind his book.

 _It was definitely something else to listen to his bewildered parents…_

"Did they check for magical traces?" Narcissa asked with a frown.

Lucius inclined his head.

"It's as if the one who stole the key somehow simply added it to the box of Gringotts' ready-to-return keys – a box nobody but the goblins have access to," he said unhappily. "It's the only way that would have washed off the magical trace of the person who stole the key. The box is build to remove the magical traces on keys, after all, to ensure that no harmful spells stay on the keys that could harm the owners."

Narcissa shook her head.

"This sounds unbelievable," she told her husband. "No wizard knows where the box is located and no wizard can actually access it anyway – and if the goblins can insist of having not breached the contract without repercussions, a goblin can't have done it either…"

Lucius sighed and Draco was sure that if his father had been less dignified, he would have pinched the bridge of his nose at that point in the conversation.

For a moment, Draco was tempted to look up – then he remembered the ring and instead stroked his key.

 _Nice and shiny – and all his own!_

"It's baffling," Draco's father said unhappily. "Of course, whoever did it would have been helpful in the last war. We could have drained our enemies dry if we had their abilities!"

Then he shook his head.

"Like it is, it's not good at all for us," he continued unhappily. "Parkinson had actually promised to help us with our next bill in the Wizengamot. He promised to soften some of the discussions somewhat for our side."

 _Oh, that sounded like a punch in the eye for his father…_

Draco actually snickered this time around.

 _He didn't regret it – at all!_

He might have, if it was somebody else, but it was Parkinson so…

 _No!_

 _No regrets!_

 _Never!_

Draco was ripped out of his thoughts when he actually looked up and saw his mother raising an inquiring eyebrow.

Then his eyes landed on his father's ring.

 _Shiny!_

Immediately he looked back at his key.

 _Nice and shiny and all his own!_

 _No ring needed!_

"So your plans are on ice now?" Draco's mother asked, to Draco's surprise sounding oddly neutral on the matter.

His father shook his head slowly.

"We'll still be able to get it through, I think," he said, looking a bit unhappy while saying so. "It would have just eased a few people to our sides without straining the coffers of us others that much."

 _So his father and Parkinson had been about to pass a bill and needed some money to grease some wheels – wheels that Lucius or others would have to grease now that Parkinson was out of the calculation._

For a moment, Draco thought unhappily about the fact that he might have aided muggleborns by taking the money off of Parkinson, considering that the bill they were to endorse most likely had to do with those of non-magical blood.

Then Draco shrugged it off.

While he wasn't that fond of muggleborns and their views, he was even less fond of Parkinson and their ilk.

 _Child murderers, all of them!_

 _And Parkinson's key had been so shiny!_

 _Nearly as shiny as Draco's own!_

He caressed his key, forcing himself not to hold it up to look at it in the candle light. He didn't want his parents to see the sparkle and find him…

 _Still – he had helped muggleborns!_

 _But then – Parkinson!_

"Looks like I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place," Draco thought with a mental frown. Then he shrugged off that thought as well.

"Whatever," he thought. "It's not as if I didn't come back here to basically destroy the pureblood movement anyway. If that means to collaborate with muggle-lovers, so be it."

Draco grimaced at that thought.

He didn't want to collaborate with someone like the Weasleys!

"Loveg… Scamander wouldn't force me to do something like that," he reasoned. "And Longbottom is reasonable enough to know that he can't expect me to make nice with the Weasleys!"

Draco shuddered.

Then he suppressed a groan when mentally reminded himself that Potter was part of their little excursion as well…

 _No Weasleys, please!_

Draco would commit murder if he had to work with them.

Then he shook his head.

This was Parkinson and their ilk they were going against…

"Maybe, the Weasleys aren't the worst option," Draco thought pouting.

Because, as much as he didn't like the Weasleys, he would never sit by and watch while child murderers were out and about, ready to kill another innocent child or two – exactly like they had done to Scorpius…

Draco shied away from that thought, still not ready to deal with it. His family's death was something he would never forget and never forgive – even if that meant to hate himself as well…

His eyes landed on his key.

 _Shiny!_

 _And so nicely distracting…_

"It's not ideal," Lucius said in that moment with a slight head-shake. "But we will make do."

Narcissa frowned at him.

"Lucius," she said slowly. "Maybe you shouldn't –"

Draco's father stopped her from voicing her opinion with a soft hand on her shoulder.

The lordship ring sparkled and drew Draco's attention from his key.

 _The ring was shiny as well…_

 _So shiny!_

Draco shook his head and looked back down at his book.

 _Not good!_

 _Not good at all!_

 _This was his father's ring!_

 _Lucius would kill him if he touched it – nevertheless took it!_

 _But it was shiny!_

 _So shiny!_

"Don't worry about it too much, darling," Lucius said in that moment. "I'll be careful. I promise."

And while Draco's mother pressed her lips together quite unhappily, his father dismantled the wards surrounding the room and then strode towards the door.

"I'll be in my study until dinner," he said. "I have to talk it through with the others and change plans."

With that he swept out of the room, leaving a sighing Narcissa behind.

Draco suppressed the urge to follow his father and take away something shiny from the older man.

"Sometimes," Draco's mother mumbled to herself. "I've actually the feeling that he spends more of his time on those he looks down upon than on his family."

Draco's mother shook her head. "I'm not actually convinced that bothering to ensure I'm superior is worth the time he has to use to ensure it."

That at least distracted Draco, making him wonder, when his mother had gotten that wise…

With that, Narcissa left and Draco crawled out behind the sofa.

 _His father truly had a nice lordship ring!_

 _But his father would kill him if he took it…_

"Guess I'll have to talk to Potter," he mused. "Maybe I can ensure that at least mother is spared his insanity…"

 _He definitely had no other reason to write Potter!_

With that, he left the room to go to his own and write a letter.

The moment he opened the door to his room, a foreign owl flew through his window.

Draco looked at it surprised before relieving it of its burden.

It was a surprisingly thick letter.

He opened it.

A second later his left eyebrow nearly touched his hairline.

"Huh," he said. "Guess I have another thing or two to do before writing to Potter…"

 _At least it would distract him from the shiny things of his father – for a while, at least…_

He frowned at the letter.

"Now let's think about it," he pondered. "Where does Father hide that insane house-elf away again?"

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 _Just a little look at the new normality in the Malfoy household…_

 _I hope you liked it._

' _Till next time_

 _Ebenbild_


	10. Chapter 10

_**Disclaimer**_ _: I'm too young to be Rowling so there is sadly no way Harry Potter is mine…_

 _ **Placing:**_ _6_ _years after the first war_ _._

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sSsSsSsSs

 _ **PAINTED ROOM**_

sSs

Harry was painting.

With slow, even strokes he painted the wall in the hallway.

At the same time, he was humming.

"Sala-gadoola-menchicka-boo-la Bibbidi-bobbidi-boo," he hummed good-humouredly. "Put'em together and what have you got? Bibbidi-bobbidi-boo…"

Again, the paint brush was tipped into the reddish white substance in Harry's little bucket.

Then Harry returned the brush to the wall and continued to spread the slightly pink colour evenly over the surface, all while continuing to hum the current song that was stuck in his head.

Oh, Harry knew that if the Dursleys could hear him, they wouldn't be too happy with the choice of his song – but truthfully, Harry didn't care, at the moment.

He was in far too good of a mood to care for something as irrelevant as that.

Again, he tipped the tip of his brush into the reddish white substance in his bucket.

In that moment, the door to the cupboard under the stairs shook and a muffled "mhh!" could be heard from its depth.

Harry removed the brush from the substance and turned to look at the closed door of the cupboard.

"Do you have to go to toilet, Dudders?" He asked sweetly. "Just rap the door once for 'yes' and two for 'no'."

For a moment, there was no answer from inside the cupboard, then the door was rapped two times.

"Oh, well," Harry said and turned back to painting. "If it's something else, that can wait. You're not due for your meal until tonight and I'll let you have your glass of water at the same time, alright?"

The answer was another muffled "mhh!" and Harry turned back to the wall.

"I've still a thing or two to do, Dudders," he said sweetly. "Now excuse me – I'm in the middle of something important."

With that he returned to painting the wall in a brilliant reddish white – a colour, that slowly but surely the more it dried dulled to a colour in between copper brown and eggshell white.

Harry thought it was quite a nice colour for the wall in the entrance hall…

Sadly, the reddish white substance he had in his bucket wouldn't be enough to finish his second paintjob of the wall today.

"Oh well," Harry mumbled to himself. "'S not as if I have to hurry…"

Then he returned to humming "Sala-gadoola-menchicka-boo-la…"

He continued to paint for another five to ten minutes, not at all disturbed by the rapping from beneath the stairs, then he started to wash out the brush and bucket for today.

He was about to put away both things to their usual place when the phone in the hallway rung.

The noise from under the stairs tripled.

Harry flicked his fingers at the door when he passed by it and suddenly the noise vanished without a trace. He rubbed his hands dry on his too-big-shirt and then took up the phone.

"Dursley residence," he said. "Harry Potter speaking."

For a moment, there was confused silence on the other end of the phone, then a man's voice spoke up, a frown even evident in its tone.

"Is this the home of Vernon Dursley?" The man asked.

"It is," Harry assured him. "He's my uncle."

"Oh… well," the man said, still sounding a bit stumped that Harry was on the phone. "Here's Charles Grunnings, your uncle's boss speaking. Can you hand him the phone, lad?"

"I'm sorry, I can't," Harry said sadly. "He's currently sleeping."

"Sleeping?" This time the other man sounded a bit incredulous.

"Yeah," Harry said. "He feels very poorly at the moment. Low blood pressure, I think."

"Alright," Mr Grunnings said slowly with disbelief in his voice, before continuing a bit stronger. "Is that the reason he has been missing from work for the past three days?"

"Huh?" Harry said surprised. "It's three days already?"

For a moment he contemplated that fact, then he reminded himself that he hadn't gotten a time and place from the others to meet yet and that he had time, so he shrugged it of unconcerned.

"Ah, yes," he chirped. "I guess that might be the reason why he's been missing from work."

Mr Grunnings on the other end of the phone huffed.

"He should have called in and told us he was ill," he said unhappily.

Harry shrugged and for good measure waved it off as well – not at all bothered that his uncle's boss couldn't see him at all.

"Yeah, well – that's not my concern, is it?" He said matter-of-factly.

Mr Grunnings stifled an amused snort.

"I guess it's not, lad," he said, before continuing. "May I speak to your aunt, then?"

Harry frowned at his reddish, slowly brownish painted wall in thought.

"Hmm," he said slowly. "I've actually no idea where she is, currently."

He thought about it a bit further.

"It's been three days since my uncle came to work?" He assured himself while trying to figure out where his aunt would be after three days…

This time there was a choked noise from the other side of the phone.

"Are you telling me you haven't seen your aunt in _three days_?" His uncle's boss exclaimed, half in disbelief, half in alarm.

"Huh?" For a moment Harry wondered why the man on the other end of the phone sounded as if he was half on the way to call the police, then Ledger nudged him mentally and made him remember that he was currently a six-year-old child – and even if the man on the other end of the phone couldn't see him, his voice sounded far too young to be alone for such a length of time.

"Oh, no," Harry assured the man, his uncle's boss, deciding to tell a bit of the truth so that the man wouldn't worry. "I've seen to her just this morning. I just don't know where she is right now."

"Oh," Mr Grunnings said and for a moment he seemed to waver between believing Harry and calling the police anyway.

Harry shrugged mentally and decided to add another half-truth for that matter.

"My cousin hasn't been able to go to school as well for the last three days and he's a bit cranky, I guess she might have gone for some thing or another to keep him entertained," he said.

"Ah," his uncle's boss said, and this time he clearly believed Harry. "And you're looking after your uncle while she's out?"

"Of course," Harry said sweetly. "What else should I do?"

"Well," Mr Grunnings huffed. "Then please remind your uncle or your aunt to call us and tell us how long it will take until your uncle will be able to return to work, will you?"

"Of course," Harry told his uncle's boss. "I will pass on the message as soon as I can."

"Thank you, lad," Mr Grunnings said. "Have a good day."

"You, too, Mr Grunnings!" Harry chirped and then hang up the phone.

For a moment, Harry looked at the nice red wall, then he shrugged and returned to the bucket.

"Might as well continue to paint a bit more," he thought to himself. "It's still some hours until dinner, after all."

With that happy thought he ascended the stairs to his uncle's and aunt's bedroom.

He knocked harshly and then simply opened the door.

"Hello, uncle!" He greeted the man chipper. "How are we today?"

His uncle was lying on the bed. Sadly, the mattress he was lying on was the old and lumpy thing they had had stuffed away in Dudley's second toy room and not his normal, very expensive one.

The moment Harry stepped into the stripped bare room, his uncle struggled to open his eyes and glare at Harry.

"You… will… pay… for… that," he pressed out, clearly having to struggle to even move his jaw. He was pale and sweaty and unable to move.

Harry crooked his head with an oddly tender smile on his face.

"Of course, Uncle Vernon," he told his uncle lovingly. "Exactly what you say, dear uncle."

With that he stepped up next to the obese man.

Said man tried to lift one of his hands – most likely to strangle his nephew – but all he managed was to twitch with his fingers.

"Now, now, uncle," Harry said. "Didn't you listen to the doctor? No moving about. That's just bad for your low blood pressure, you know?"

With that Harry poised his empty little bucket next to his uncle's hand.

"Don't worry, uncle," he said sweetly. "Doctor Harry will make you alright again in no time at all!"

His uncle's eyes widened in fear.

That was when Harry remembered the phone call.

"Oh," he said. "Before I forget! Your boss called. He said to call him and tell him when you'll be able to return to work. I'd told him never – but since I guessed that he wouldn't believe me if I'd say that, I simply promised to pass on the message."

"You… boy!" His uncle fumed, but he was far too exhausted to say more than he had.

Harry smiled at the man and patted his shoulder.

"Don't worry, uncle," he said. "You already lost some weight. I'm sure in a day or two you'll move on to a new life! I'm good at my job, after all!"

His uncle's eyes nearly bugged out at that, but Harry didn't look into his uncle's face. He was far too busy to position the hand of his uncle just right – Aunt Petunia didn't like strains on her carpet, after all – and moving the bucket beneath it.

Ten minutes later he left the room again with a little bucket full of red substance mixed with white wall paint.

"Guess that should be enough for around the entrance door," Harry guessed with good humour. "That should also be enough of work for me until I'll have to make some dinner."

With that, he returned to the entrance hallway and started to paint the wall around the entrance door.

He started to hum "Sala-gadoola-menchicka-boo-la Bibbidi-bobbidi-boo…"

He was about half a door in, when something banged against the door of the cupboard under the stairs.

Harry stopped and turned to the noise.

"You know the drill, Dudders," he said sweetly. "Do you have to go to the toilet? Once for 'yes', two for 'no'."

This time, something slammed against the door once.

Harry considered it.

"I had to silence you today," he said aloud with a frown. "And you've been banging against that door for hours now…"

He hummed in thought.

"Nope," he finally declared. "I think that warrants a punishment, don't you think so, too, Dudders?"

The banging got louder.

Harry looked at the cupboard.

"I guess Aunt Petunia would have let you out already," he said with a thoughtful frown. "But then, she wouldn't have bothered if it was me…"

With that thought he shrugged and turned back towards the entrance door.

"I'll start dinner in about an hour," he said. "I'll let you out, then."

With that he returned to humming and painting, not bothered at all by the noise behind him.

He was just a few inches further when suddenly something rapped against the window in the living room.

Harry rubbed his forehead in surprise, but then sat down his paint brush and went to take a look.

Outside the window, an owl was waiting.

Harry smiled at the owl.

"Hello, beautiful!" He greeted her chipper and opened the window to let her in. The owl dropped a letter into his hands and then perched on Petunia Dursley's precious glass cabinet.

Harry smiled at the owl.

"Take care up there," he said. "Aunt might be unhappy if we smash it…"

That sentence made him thoughtful, but before he could think further about it, his eyes again landed onto the letter in his hands.

He decided, that he could think about his idea later and opened the letter instead while simultaneously walking into the kitchen to get the owl some bacon.

He opened the refrigerator, pushed aside the huge-eyed, gagged and bound form of his aunt – he pushed her into space that shouldn't even exist inside a refrigerator that size – and pulled out some bacon.

Then he closed the door of the refrigerator again and returned to the living room to feed the owl, all the while brooding over the list he had gotten from Luna and Neville.

When the owl had swooped down, grabbed the bacon and left, he finally put down the list and held out his hands for nothing instead.

"Ledger!" He called and his empty hands filled with a leather bound book.

The moment book came into being in his hands, it flipped open and a voice was heard coming out of the pages.

"Finally!" The book complained. "I began to think you planned to ignore me for the rest of the day as well!"

Harry shrugged unconcerned.

"I talked to you just last night," he pointed out.

The book pouted.

"You were doing paperwork, yesterday night," it pointed out sullenly. "That's not talking to me at all!"

Harry frowned.

"But I asked you about the circumstances and all that," he defended himself. "I think that that counts as talking!"

"But paperwork is boring!" Ledger complained.

Harry looked at the book pointedly.

"Then you shouldn't have waited to do yours that long!" He scolded. "You should have searched yourself a victim for your paperwork centuries ago!"

The answer was another pout.

"It's not as if I could just walk up to a random human and tell them: 'Hey! I decided to take you with me and make you do paperwork for me! Come on, hurry or the paperwork will get even worse than it is!'," Ledger said unhappily. "No – the rules say that the only one who can call me is Death – and Death is the owner of the three Deathly Hallows."

Harry raised an eyebrow at his leathery companion.

"You _are_ aware that I currently don't own even one of the Hallows, are you?" He asked pointedly.

The book snuggled into his hands.

"Doesn't matter if you currently have them or not," it said. "They're bound to your soul and your memories. As long as you still remember gaining them – as long as you still have the same soul – you _are_ their master, no matter where they are or who is using them."

Harry rolled his eyes.

"I'm sure you just made up that rule," he said amused. "You're harder to get rid of than a tattoo – and that says something!"

"As if you wanted to get rid of me, master!" Ledger exclaimed.

Harry rolled his eyes, but in the end sat down Ledger next to the list Luna and Neville had send him on the living room table.

"Whatever you say, Ledger," he said with fondness in his voice. "Whatever you say!"

With that he tipped the blank pages of the book in front of him, while saying the first name on the list Luna had send him.

"Oh!" Ledger exclaimed. "That's a naughty boy! I like naughty boys like him!"

Harry just patted the book fondly.

"You just like them because they're nargles for me," he said amused.

The book snapped after his fingers by closing rapidly.

Sadly enough, Harry was used to that particular behaviour and was able to snatch them back before the book hit them.

"I'm just saying the truth," he defended himself to Ledger. "It's not my fault that you don't want to admit it!"

The book opened back up, its pages still proclaiming the entire curriculum vitae of the man Harry had inquired about.

"I've always liked naughty boys," Ledger exclaimed. "It's not my fault that you have taken to use those people as… nargles." The book said the last word with clear distaste in its voice and Harry patted it soothingly.

"Of course, my dear," he said. "You're absolutely right, my dear."

"If you don't stop it now I will snap at you again," Ledger warned him and Harry pouted.

"Alright, alright," he said, before standing up and heeding back towards the hallway. "It's not as if I have time to tease you further, anyway. I have to use up my paint before it expires."

"Paint?" Ledger asked interestedly. "What paint?"

"Vernon Dursley," Harry said. "I mixed it about an hour and a half ago."

The books pages changed to the curriculum vitae of one Vernon Dursley.

"Oh!" Ledger exclaimed with clear interest in its voice. "What a nice vintage! He must make a very nice coloured wall!"

Harry looked at the rest of the hallway he had already painted.

"Oh yes," he said. "He does!"

Ledger paged through the curriculum vitae of Vernon Dursley.

"Hmm," it exclaimed. "That must be about thirty years that will lay unclaimed when you're done with him. Truly, an excellent choice. I'm sure Mr Grunnings will appreciate your choice when he won't loose that deal with that Italian business man in 1999. It will give his firm international recognition and will safe them from ruin."

"Huh? It will?" Harry said. "Mr Grunnings didn't say anything of that kind when I talked to him about two hours ago."

"Well, people have always been a bit ungrateful when it came to your work," Ledger pointed out reasonably.

Harry thought that over while tipping his brush into the reddish white substance in his little bucket.

"I think you're right about that," he said thoughtfully. "They've never truly appreciated me. Well – most of them. Luna has always been grateful to me!"

"Yeah," Ledger agreed. "And that just shows you that there's something wrong with that girl."

"But –"

"No, master," Ledger said. "You should know that the norm is decided by the bigger percentage – and that makes that girl an oddity."

Harry guessed that he couldn't object to that, so he shrugged.

"She's still a great friend," he pointed out. "After all, she has always been considerate enough to point me towards some nargles."

For a moment, Ledger stayed silent, then it sighed.

"I guess I can't object to that," it said unhappily.

"Good," Harry said. "And now read to me the curriculum vitae of that nargle I asked you to look at before you changed the topic to my paint."

Ledger pouted, but did as it was asked.

Another forty-five minutes later, Harry was finally done with his paintjob and went to wash out the paint again. When he had finally put away the bucket and brush, he opened the door to the cupboard under the stairs.

His cousin looked back at him with huge eyes.

"I hope you haven't let loose in here," Harry said coolly in his best Aunt-Petunia-voice. "Because if you did, you'll have to sleep in it tonight."

Dudley shook his head frantically.

"Good," Harry said. "Then go to the bathroom now. And don't you dare to not come back immediately! If you dare to do something you aren't allowed to, you will go to bed hungry tonight – do you understand me?"

Dudley nodded frantically again and then hurried up the stairs and into the bathroom.

"Seems you're quite good when it comes to raising children to responsible adults," Ledger said.

Harry just waived it off.

"I figured that I had to use Aunt Petunia's methods with him," he said. "There must have been a reason why she chose those to raise me into a responsible adult, after all…"

Ledger snickered.

"So you're a responsible adult now, master?" it asked amused.

Harry raised an eyebrow at the book on the living room table.

"If you remember," he said dryly. "I'm currently working off the paperwork of centuries – if that isn't what responsible adults do, then I don't know!"

For a moment, there was no answer from Ledger.

Then the book snickered again.

"If you put it like that…" it said.

Ten minutes later, Harry had to go up the stairs and stun his cousin to drag him back into the cupboard.

He closed the door between himself and his cousin and then removed the magic from the other boy.

Immediately Dudley complained loudly.

"Let me out, freak! Mummy! The freak has –"

His cousin's voice broke of mid-sentence when the curse Harry had placed on him snapped back in place.

Harry rolled his eyes at the cupboard.

"I told you that using any kind of swear-words or calling other people names will end with you losing your voice again," he pointed out. "That will be no dinner for you, tonight. I hope you used your time in the bathroom to drink from the water tap – if you haven't, well, your fault."

With that, Harry turned away from the cupboard and went into the kitchen.

He opened the door to the refrigerator, reached over his bound and gagged aunt and withdrew the pizza he had prepared for himself in the morning.

From the living room, he could hear Ledger snicker.

"I bet, in a few days your child rearing skills will ensure that the brat learns to obey you," Ledger cackled.

Harry shrugged, not concerned with the fact if Ledger could see him or not.

"I hope so," he said. "'S not as if I have endless time to train Dudders, you know? And now, don't change the topic anymore – go back to reading out the curriculum vitae of the person I opened last."

Harry had a very productive rest of the evening.

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 _Well, that was Harry in action. I tried to not make it too gory…_

 _I hope you liked it._

' _Till next time_

 _Ebenbild_


	11. Chapter 11

_**Disclaimer**_ _: I'm too young to be Rowling so there is sadly no way Harry Potter is mine…_

 _ **Placing:**_ _29_ _years after the second war_ _– and 6 after the first._

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sSsSsSsSs

 _ **BISCUIT ROOM**_

sSs

 _One hippogriff._

 _One hippogriff was sitting on a tree._

 _One hippogriff was sitting on a tree with an owl on its back._

 _One hippogriff was sitting on a tree with an owl on its back looking up to the moon._

 _One hippogriff…_

"Mummy," Luna said while swinging her legs and cutting out another hippogriff-shaped biscuit with both hands. Her tongue poked out of her mouth while doing so and she was looking at the dough in deep concentration.

 _One hippogriff was sitting on a tree with an owl on its back looking up to the moon with hearts in its eyes…_

"Yes, Luna?" Her mother said when Luna didn't speak further before shaking her head at her little girl. She had no idea why Luna wanted to cut out Christmas biscuits in the middle of the summer – well, except that Luna always insisted that she was born in winter, meaning that now was actually late autumn for her…

 _One heart… two hearts…_

"Mummy," Luna said again and cut a second heart-shaped biscuit. "If I wanted to change the world – would you help me?"

Her mother raised an eyebrow at that.

"I guess that's depends on why you wanted to change the world," she finally settled on. "And how you wanted to do it."

 _One hippogriff…_

Luna looked up from her biscuits.

"I want to change the world to make it better, Mummy," Luna said with an expression on her face that told her mother that she should have known that.

"Of course you want to," the mother agreed readily before reaching out and caressing her daughter's hair. "But just knowing that you want to make it better won't be enough, Luna, darling."

For a moment she simply pulled away some locks from Luna's forehead then she continued.

"You have to know exactly what you want to change and how you want to change it," she explained. "That's not an easy thing to do – even if it sounds like that. You need a lot of information before you can even think about beginning."

The mother's eyes first looked into her daughter's, just to start roaming over the table filled with biscuits in the shape of hippogriffs, trees, owls and moons and now some hearts.

Her daughter meanwhile nodded earnestly.

"Of course, Mummy," Luna said airily. "But when I have all the information – will you help me?"

The mother smiled at her child.

"And how do you want to change the world?" She asked her daughter indulgently while secretly wondering how to explain to her daughter that they couldn't change the world into a paradise for the fantastical creatures the girl's father was always talking about.

Luna's mother believed to know her daughter quite well – and sadly the little girl was often exactly like her father when it came to her understanding of the world…

Then her daughter let go of the heart-shaped biscuit cutter.

Luna took a deep breath and then turned so that she could look her mother squarely in the eyes – an action that made her mother raise an eyebrow, not used to the odd clearness in her daughter's normally dreamy eyes.

"I want to bring down the blood-purists, the Death Eaters who got away and the Dark Lord still in hiding," she told her mother earnestly. "Then I plan to take down the Ministry, maybe the Headmaster of Hogwarts and reorder the Wizengamot."

For a second or two, Luna's mother blinked at her in total confusion and surprise then Luna's eyes returned to her normal dreamy state and she smiled at her mother sweetly.

"Will you help me with that, Mummy?" She asked, before reaching for another biscuit cutter – this time a star.

 _One hippogriff was sitting on a tree with an owl on its back, looking up to the moon with hearts in its eyes, and it searched for the stars…_

Her mother opened her mouth – just to close it again without saying anything.

Then her eyes narrowed.

 _That sounded like one of the harebrained schemes Xenophilius cooked up every few years…_

Luna's mother loved her husband dearly, but sometimes he had just a bit too much fantasy to keep a sense of reality – and in times like those the most idiotic things would come to his mind.

Of course, this time he had obviously shared his ideas with Luna who adored her father and believed in everything he told her about…

"Go back to your biscuits, Luna, darling," she finally said to her daughter instead of answering and patted her hair. "Mummy has to talk to Daddy for a moment or two…"

Luna blinked, but nodded.

"Okay, Mummy," she agreed readily. "I guess it's just sensible to talk it all through with Daddy before agreeing to anything."

"Exactly," her mother said while inwardly planning to chew out her husband.

 _What had Xenophilius done now that her six-year-old daughter suddenly planned to take down the whole wizarding world?!_

 _Luna's mother was used to a lot of strange ideas – but this one definitely took the cake! She would be damned if her husband would bring in their baby girl into his new harebrained schemes!_

With that thoughts she left the kitchen after a last affectionate pat on her daughter's head to go and search for her wayward husband.

Luna meanwhile looked after her mother with a thoughtful expression on her face.

"She seemed a bit upset," Luna said to herself. "Maybe I should have presented her with some of my findings first to ease her into the conversation…"

Then Luna shrugged.

It had been decades since she had last seen her mother, after all, so no wonder she wasn't quite familiar enough with the woman to know how to approach her about something like that correctly…

"Oh, well," Luna thought. "It's not as if my question will cause any harm. She's spelled so that she can't talk about it outside of family and Daddy will be spelled to moment she tells him…"

Luna had taken that precaution to ensure that nobody outside those she wanted to would find out about the plans Neville and she were assembling. Of course, even if her mother would have talked to anybody else about the general overview of their goals it wouldn't have been disastrous, after all, it was Neville who did the actual planning – and his plans were always a mastery of art, with contingency plans that had contingency plans and filled with details not even Luna would have thought about…

With that thought, Luna shrugged disinterestedly and returned to cutting out her biscuits.

 _One hippogriff._

 _One hippogriff was sitting on a tree._

 _One hippogriff was sitting on a tree with an owl on its back._

 _One hippogriff was sitting on a tree with an owl on its back looking…_

She was interrupted before she could actually cut out the moon by an owl which suddenly flew around the room before landing right in front of Luna's dough just to look at her with unblinking eyes.

So Luna put down her moon-shaped biscuit cutter and blinked at the regal looking owl.

Then she crooked her head.

"Aren't you missed by your master if you're here?" She asked the owl with dreamy eyes.

The owl hooted.

"Oh, really," Luna said. "It's sad if one's master doesn't appreciate one and prefers to use another."

The owl hooted again.

"Well, at least Draco Malfoy is considerate enough to ask you to do things for him now," she said. "I guess that being appreciated at least by him is better than not being appreciated at all."

The owl bobbed its head and hooted again.

Luna smiled.

"Well," she said. "If you've still some free time, how about I find you something to do?"

This time the owl crooked its head before hooting.

Luna nodded.

"Ah!" She said. "Of course Draco Malfoy will always be your first concern after he went through all the trouble to get you out of the house without his father noticing!"

The owl bobbed its head, then it held out a letter for Luna.

Luna reached for it.

"I guess that's the answer to my letter?" She said.

The owl hooted.

Luna nodded gravely.

"I understand," she said. "I will talk to Draco Malfoy about it. It's not nice to make you deliver something without telling you what it actually is."

The owl bobbed its head seriously.

Luna took the parchment and unrolled it.

"Ah, yes," she said. "It's the answer to the letter I send about wrackspurts and nargles."

Her eyes roamed over the parchment.

"Oh," she said surprised. "He's even considerate enough to mention some more places I can go to, to get information…"

She pondered about it a bit before looking at the owl.

"Any idea where the Notts live?" She asked the owl. "They're holding a birthday party for their son soon and Draco Malfoy is sure that a lot of nargles and wrackspurts will attend."

The owl crooked it head before hooting sadly.

Luna nodded, her face as sad as the owls.

"Work secret, I understand," she said earnestly, before shrugging. "Don't worry about it. I will simply ask Harry. He always knows the most unusual things, you know?"

The owl hooted.

But before Luna could say something else or ponder some more, another owl entered the room. The owl was staggering in the air, clearly unable to keep a straight line and was drenched in red. It came down hard, missed Luna's biscuits by an inch and finally landed unsteadily next to the first, nearly crashing into it while doing so.

Luna blinked at the owl which stared at the first owl darkly and a bit unsteadily as if it wasn't sure what it was actually seeing.

Luna crooked her head at the new owl then she shrugged and decided to use common courtesy to greet it.

"Hello Hakuna Matata," she greeted the second owl. "How was your flight? Is Harry still behaving himself?"

The owl send her a dark look before hooting more then once at her.

Luna nodded to each hoot while waiting patiently until the owl was finished, just saying "ah" and "oh" and "hmm" while listening to the hooted rant.

"I'm sorry you had to go through that, Hakuna Matata," she said finally seriously. "I will talk to Harry. It's not right to build a catapult and use it to shoot raspberry and strawberry jam at the living room furniture."

The owl hooted again.

Luna nodded.

"And the glasses with the jam at the glass cabinet of his aunt," she said.

The owl hooted.

"Oh, well," Luna said. "I guess making her watch was kind of sweet, don't you think so too? His aunt, I'm sure, is happy to know how much he's progressing with refurbishing the house."

The owl hooted disagreeable.

Luna crooked her head.

"Hakuna Matata," she said a bit sternly. "Don't you dare to think that! Harry's a nice guy! He wouldn't just suffocate his aunt in the refrigerator! He's far too noble for that! When he kills her, he will kill her in a way that she will be dead in an instant – before that he will take care that she won't die before her time. He might keep people on the brink of death and he might treat them like they treated him – but otherwise he's not a cruel guy, you know?"

The owl hooted disagreeable.

Luna sighed.

"Ah, well, yes," she said. "The refrigerator was a bit cruel… but then, I believe his aunt made him run around in rags in winter. I think that's not less cruel, is it?"

The owl thought about it and in the end it just looked away.

Luna smiled at the owl.

"It's alright, Hakuna Matata," she said. "Without context, it clearly looks like a very, very unusual punishment."

The owl bobbed it head, then it held out a leg with a letter attached to it. The letter was partly drenched in red as well.

Luna took the letter and then licked her fingers.

"Hmm," she said approvingly. "Raspberry jam. I think I need some as well for my biscuits…"

She opened the letter, read it and then nodded.

"So… I guess I can send those lists on towards Neville," she said. "I'll add my own findings and then we'll meet all next Saturday in Diagon Alley. Harry should be done with the most of the things he still has to do at his relatives by then."

She nodded to herself before looking at the owls.

"How about you rest somewhat… and clean up," she added after seeing Hakuna Matata's red feathers. "And then I'll send you back with an answer?"

Draco Malfoy's owl hooted agreeable.

Hakuna Matata hooted sadly.

Luna smiled at the owls and then stood up to find some beacon for each. After she had given the owls a treat, the two of them flew away to rest – and clean up.

Luna meanwhile washed her hands before returning to her dough.

"Where was I?" She wondered. For a moment she pondered that question while looking at the letters she had set aside next to her dough then she shrugged.

"Ah – whatever," she said before picking up the hippogriff-shaped biscuit cutter.

 _One hippogriff._

 _One hippogriff was sitting on a tree._

 _One hippogriff was sitting on a tree with an owl on its back._

 _One hippogriff was sitting on a tree with an owl on its back looking up to the moon._

 _One hippogriff was sitting on a tree with an owl on its back looking up to the moon with hearts in its eyes._

 _One hippogriff was sitting on a tree with an owl on its back, looking up to the moon with hearts in its eyes, and it searched for the stars._

 _One hippogriff…_

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 _Hmm… I was making mini-cakes with a filling of raspberry-cream before writing that… it might have mixed into this chapter a bit… xDDD_

 _I hope you liked it anyway._

' _Till next time_

 _Ebenbild_


	12. Chapter 12

_**Disclaimer**_ _: I'm too young to be Rowling so there is sadly no way Harry Potter is mine…_

 _ **Placing:**_ _29_ _years after the war_ _– and 6 after the first.._

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sSsSsSsSs

 _ **STAINED ROOM**_

sSs

Draco was pressed into a corner as far as possible.

His eyes were fixed on something on the other side of the room.

 _Oh, yes – this might be the step where everything could blow up in his face._

For a moment, Draco hesitated, looking at the room around him.

It was his father's study.

'Was' was the deciding factor right now.

The once pristine room had changed somewhat since Draco had acquired it as his own about two hours ago.

His father's mahogany table was scorched and showed different signs of strains everywhere.

His father's expensive leather chair was full of holes.

Some of his father's papers had vanished without a trace and some others were singed beyond recognition.

And even the rest of the once pristine furniture, cluttered all over the room, was now strained with differently coloured blotches.

The walls were spotted like the furniture – once green, they were now in all the colours of the rainbow – on the side of the desk a lot more than everywhere else in the room.

Draco definitely liked his redecoration of the room.

For a moment, he looked around the room again, then he grinned.

"Open fire!" Draco cried, feeling a bit childish while doing so. Then he threw with all the vengeance he could muster.

The ingredient in his hand hit the cauldron on the other side of the room.

For a second or two, the ingredient from his hand swam on top of the potion Draco had brewed, the next moment it sank and the cauldron began to bubble and to simmer.

Suddenly, the whole brew looked like it was about to explode. It bubbled violently, turned a piercing orange and started to hiss – just , in the next moment, for the simmering to stop and the potion to turn golden.

Draco pouted, a bit disappointed.

"Bloody Longbottom and his knowledge of plants!" Draco murmured to himself, but in the end, he sighed and then stepped slowly closer to the cauldron on the table.

The brew in it was still golden...

"Hmm," Draco said slowly. "Looks exactly like in Longbottom's notes, I guess…"

He took the stirrer from next to the cauldron and slowly stirred the potion.

"Yes," he said, nodding to himself. "That's the consistency Longbottom said it should be like. Seems like I did it…"

Draco shook his head.

Longbottom was a genius when it came to inventing potions.

Sadly, thanks to Snape, Longbottom, with all his genius in inventing potions, was still horrible when it came to brewing them himself.

In other words: Longbottom was the one conducting the theory when it came to new potions and then send it on to Draco to actually conduct the brewing…

Interestingly, like that, Longbottom and Draco had managed to invent quite a few potions in the future.

Now it seemed like they were again inventing another potion together…

"Now we just have to test if it actually does what we want it to do," Draco murmured – but then, he wasn't that concerned about that. He knew Longbottom. Longbottom had until now never been wrong about any kind of potion he ever invented.

"Oh, well," Draco corrected himself while looking around the room. "He's not wrong after I manage to find the final ingredients combination, that is."

Of course, finding a combination like that took some time – and a place to brew.

In that moment, Draco heard the entrance door downstairs opening.

"Ah," he said. "Seems like Father's back home."

So Draco pocketed his notes, grabbed his potion and left the room.

He vanished into his room where he put the cauldron down and then started to fill the potion into twelve crystal vials.

After he had filled the vials, he sat down to write a short letter to Longbottom before adding the letter to the vials.

"Now I just need to call for that deranged house-elf," Draco murmured to himself, when suddenly a scream was heard all throughout the house.

Draco looked up from the package he was currently tying.

"Oh," he said interestedly. "Seems like Father entered his office…"

With that thought, Draco closed his package before leaving the room to go and look for his father.

Said man was standing at the entrance to his once pristine office, staring in disbelief at the destruction that had been inflicted on it.

"Lucius!" Draco's mother called out to his father and hurried up to him. "Are you alright?"

His father didn't remove his eyes from his office.

"My… The…" He muttered before he forced himself back to his normal cool behaviour. "What happened to my office, Narcissa?"

Draco's mother frowned.

"Your office?" She asked a bit confused. "Nothing happened to it."

His father threw his mother a disbelieving and disconcerting look and then stepped aside to let her see the inside of his office herself.

Draco's mother raised her hands to her mouth aghast.

"I have no idea how something like that could have happened!" She exclaimed. "I especially forbade the elves from entering your office without your explicit permission!"

Lucius frowned and then turned to look at Draco.

Huge and innocent eyes met him from the face of his son.

Lucius sighed and Draco had to hide a smirk at his father's dismayed expression.

"I know that Draco would never enter my office without my permission," Lucius said and Draco shook his head frantically.

 _Of course he wouldn't – never!_

Lucius' eyes narrowed.

"You said the elves were forbidden?" He assured himself while looking at Narcissa.

His wife inclined her head.

"Yes, Lucius," she said. "Ever since one of them destroyed one of your papers…"

"Doesn't that mean that they can't enter if you don't allow it?" Draco asked his parents innocently, but before he could get an answer, something on the other side of the manor exploded and then de wards surrounding the property shook.

His father's eyes narrowed further.

"There's an intruder in our home!" He exclaimed angrily, before turning around swiftly to stride towards the fireplace and call the aurors.

"Narcissa, Draco," he said while walking away. "Stay in this part of the manor. I don't want you to be taken hostage!"

"Of course, Father," Draco readily agreed. "I go and hide in my room."

With that, he turned around and vanished back inside his room while wondering how long it would take for the aurors to find Gregory Goyle's father on the other side of the manor, incapacitated by a ward and some important financial documents of Lucius Malfoy as well as some Malfoy heirlooms in his pocket.

 _But then, Goyle had it coming – if not the father, then the son._

Draco had never been the forgiving kind… so there was no way that he would forgive the death of his family.

Of course, meeting Goyle's father while being out in Diagon Alley last night - without his parents knowing, that is - had been doubly fortunate. It gave him an excuse to torture his father a bit, it also ensured that Draco had another bit of financial backing after using the same trick to gain Goyle's gold that he had already used for Parkinson – not that he had taken as much from Goyle as he had taken from Parkinson. And of course, forging evidence for Goyle's break-in and giving him over to the aurors as a thief would also destroy the political clout that the Goyles had in the future.

 _Yes, Draco liked his little games – especially when they were so interesting to play…_

"Dobby!" Draco called the moment the door to his room closed.

"Master calls for Dobby?" The deranged house-elf asked after popping into the room.

Draco grinned.

"I have a package for you," he said, grinning evilly. "It's for Longbottom. Please assure that an owl is send with it within the next half an hour."

"Of course, Master," Dobby replied, leaving a second later with the package.

Draco grinned even more.

His grin now even more than evil.

"Let's see how those child-killers will cope when they're met with a pair of the most insane people I will ever know!" He murmured to himself.

Considering that Potter was sure soon to start with his own game, Draco doubted that the world would survive…

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 _Yes, Draco might have lost a marble or two as well… xD_

 _I hope you liked it anyway._

' _Till next time_

 _Ebenbild_


	13. Chapter 13

_**Disclaimer**_ _: I'm too young to be Rowling so there is sadly no way Harry Potter is mine…_

 _ **Placing:**_ _29_ _years after the war_ _– and 6 after the first.._

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sSsSsSsSs

 _ **LABELLED ROOM**_

sSs

Neville Longbottom looked up from where he was sitting in one of the trees in the arcade of Longbottom manor.

In his left hand, was a quill, in his right sat an ink pot.

The sleeve on his right arm was pulled back to the elbow and the inner side of his arm was painted black with different kind of odd symbols.

Inky symbols.

Neville was frowning at them.

He crooked his head to the left.

"Hmm," he whispered to himself. "Maybe… not."

For a moment, he frowned further at the symbols, then he crooked his head to his right.

"Or maybe… after all?"

Again, he stared at the symbols. Then he carefully switched the ink pot from his right to his left hand and then pulled back the other sleeve.

There, also a lot of black symbols could be seen.

"Hmmm," Neville repeated. "Maybe… like that…"

He thought about it another second or two, then nodded slowly.

"Yeah," he said slowly. "Maybe… a good idea."

With that, Neville took the ink pot back in his right hand and started to scribble further symbols onto his arm.

He was nearly done with scribbling down his thought process, when his grandmother exited the manor in search of him.

"Neville?" She called with a frown. "Neville!"

Neville looked up from his scribbles, frowned at his grandmother searching from, sighed and then decided to jump down back to the ground.

"Neville!" His grandmother, having seen him jumping, had raised her hand to her heart while looking at him appalled. "What were you doing up that tree?"

Neville just blinked up at his grandmother innocently while he hid the motion of finishing to screw shut the ink pot behind his back before hiding it in his robes.

"Sitting," he answered, as innocently as he could.

His grandmother frowned at him.

"Sitting?" She repeated with disbelief in her voice aghast. "Why should you try to sit in a tree, Neville?"

Neville looked at her as innocently as before.

"No, Gran," he said, still looking at her with huge, innocent eyes. "The question is: Why shouldn't I sit in a tree?"

His grandmother opened her mouth to answer, just to frown and close her mouth.

In the end, she shook her head.

"Neville, dear," she started to say, but was interrupted from saying anything more by an owl flying down from the sky. The owl landed on Neville's shoulder, holding out its leg so that Neville could take the package it carried.

"Oh," Neville said, taking the package and opening it. "Splendid!"

His grandmother frowned at him.

"Neville, what -?"

"Don't worry, Gran," Neville said, interrupting his grandmother absentmindedly. "It's something I've been waiting for for a few days already."

"You've been waiting… for potions, Neville?" His grandmother asked a bit hesitatingly, clearly unsure what to make of her confident grandson.

Neville inclined his head at his Gran.

"Yes, Gran," he agreed. "And now, please excuse me. I have to be somewhere else."

With that, he abandoned his grandmother in the arcade to return to the manor while slipping away the package into his robes.

"Neville, what –"

But Neville just waved his grandmother off and then entered the manor. Inside, he searched out the fireplace in his grandmother's study – the only fireplace in the manor connected to the floo.

He took some of the floo-powder, threw it into the fire and then called out Luna's address.

It was Luna's mother who answered the floo.

"Oh, hello Mrs. Lovegood," Neville greeted her with a smile. "May I talk to Luna for a second?"

The woman blinked, half-turned away from the fireplace and frowned, before she nodded.

"Of course, Neville," she agreed. "Just give me a moment."

Another twenty-eight seconds later, Neville was finally connected to Luna and his grandmother was standing behind him in the study.

"Hello Neville," Luna greeted him as dreamy as ever. "Have you gotten your package, yet?"

"I did," Neville agreed immediately.

"Oh," Luna said. "Did it work?"

Neville just smiled at the odd girl fondly.

"I don't know," he confessed. "I haven't tried it yet."

"Oh," Luna said, a bit confused. "Then why did you call?"

Neville snickered.

"I just wanted to tell you that Saturday is a go," he replied. "We're meeting in Diagon Alley if that's alright with you."

"Sure," Luna agreed immediately. "Mommy won't say no if she finds out I'm meeting a friend in Diagon Alley, don't worry, Neville."

"Good," Neville said, while nodding slowly. "See you on Saturday, then."

With that, he disconnected the floo-call and turned back to his grandmother.

"I'm in Diagon Alley this Saturday," he told her matter-of-factly.

The old woman frowned.

"Neville –"

"Don't worry," Neville assured her immediately. "Luna's mother is watching us."

For another second or two, his grandmother hesitated, but in the end she sighed and inclined her head.

"Alright, Neville," she agreed. "If Mrs Lovegood is watching you, I guess I can't object."

"Good," Neville said before turning back to the floo. "I'm going to St. Mungo's now, Gran. I know, Dad's birthday is tomorrow – but I don't think he'll mind if I come a day early, do you?"

At that, his grandmother frowned at him.

"You want to go to visit your parents?" She asked and Neville guessed that maybe it was a bit unusual for him. The hospital had always had a depressing atmosphere for Neville, so wanting to visit it wasn't that usual for him. On the other side, Neville was missing his parents – so going to visit them was the least he could do. In the future, he would go and visit them whenever he missed them, after all…

"Yes," he finally settled on saying, not bothering to explain himself. "I know that you will have guests this afternoon, so you don't have to accompany me. I'm six –" Or was he seven? _Whatever_. "– I think I'm old enough to visit my parents on my own."

His grandmother looked at him sadly at that.

"I guess you're right, Neville," she agreed with a sad look. "And it seems like you're actually growing up…"

Neville sent his grandmother a smile.

"I am," he agreed. "Now, dear Gran, will you excuse me?"

For a second, the proud but slightly tearful eyes of his grandmother settled on his face, then she inclined her head at him.

"I will," she told her grandson. "I wish you a good time at your parents'."

"Thank you, Gran," with that, Neville flooed off to St. Mungo's.

He was a bit surprised that his grandmother had accepted his wish to go to St. Mungo's alone – but then, he had flooed alone before and the hospital was one of the safest places in the British wizarding world – not even considering the fact that Neville was that often there that he knew the staff of St. Mungo's all by name and all of them knew him and looked after him…

Stepping out of the fire place in the entrance hall, Neville greeted the receptionist before walking to the ward where his parents had their room.

"Neville!" One of the nurses who treated his parents, greeted him surprised. "Are you here alone?"

"I am, Ms. Shepard," he replied. "Gran agreed that I'm finally old enough to visit my parents alone!"

The nurse smiled at that.

"Then I hope you will have a good visit," she agreed. "They're in their room. You can go in."

"Thank you, Ms. Shepard," Neville agreed.

With that, he walked down the hall to his parents' room and opened the door.

His father, like always, lay on the bed without moving. His mother, this time around was sitting on hers, humming and playing with some sweets she had gotten from the nurse.

It was the first time, since a long time, that he saw his parents again – and for a second, Neville's heart clenched.

There they were, trapped in their own bodies and minds, yet still together after all what had happened. And for a second, just for a second, Neville resented them for it.

They were still together, yet Neville stood there, alone and lost without the person who had meant the most in his life. Without Hannah, his beloved, sweet Hannah.

The next second, Neville felt ashamed of his thoughts.

Yes, his parents were still together – but they had lost their lives as well that day they –

Yet, they had at least managed to safe Neville, unlike Neville himself who had failed to safe his children…

Again, the feeling of resentment crept up, but he squashed it vigorously. Instead, he took a deep breath and greeted his parents calmly.

"Hey, Mum," Neville greeted her, not expecting a reply. "Hey, Dad."

His mother just continued humming and his father didn't move at all.

Neville pulled out of his robes the package he had gotten just half an hour ago.

He searched the package until he found the candy stored in one of the potion vials.

He remembered quite well that his mother loved any form of candy – ever had, since he could remember… exactly like his children had.

Neville swallowed and squished that thought before it fully formed. His children were gone and had been gone for eight years. He was doing fine, finally fine after years of living in a haze of rage and grief. He wouldn't go back there now, not, when he finally could change everything. Not, when he finally could rescue all those children from those who had killed them.

"Not all children," a voice whispered in Neville's mind – the voice sounding suspiciously like Harry. "You won't be able to safe your own… never your own."

Neville swallowed and tried to forget his thought.

No, he wouldn't be able to safe his own – but everybody else, he would… every else he would for Hannah and his children; for Ginny, James, Albus and Lily; for Astoria and Scorpius; for Rolf, Lorcan and Lysander – and for his parents as well…

With that, he banished his thoughts and returned to the presence and his parents in front of him.

"Look, Mum," Neville said, holding out one of the candies to his mother. "I've got some candy for you!"

His mother stared at his hand for a second or two. Then she reached out and took it from his hand in exchange for one of the wrappers she always gifted him with.

Neville took the wrapper, took a look at it and slipped it away like he always had done when he was a little child. He knew for a fact that he would put it to the other wrappers he had at home – a habit he had never changed even in the future.

Still, it was somehow nostalgic to hold a wrapper of his mother's and tucking it away in his shirt to ensure that his grandmother wouldn't see it and take it away from him to throw it away.

But then, his grandmother had never understood the importance of those wrappers…

Neville shook his head to get rid of that thought as well and smiled instead at his mother.

"Thank you, Mum," Neville said fondly before stepping up to the bed of his father and fiddling with the man's drip for a second or two. In the future, Neville had learned how to work with a drip – how to exchange it, how to add some potions to it, how to insert the needle connected to it into the vein, whatever.

When Neville had turned eighteen and the war was over, he had taken up a lot of the care of his parents and looking after his father's drip was something of a habit.

Of course, such familiar actions just ensured other familiar actions as well, so Neville turned away from the drip and looked at the door of his parents' room, expecting Hannah to enter any second or so.

For a second, he was disillusioned into thinking that he would see Hannah again any second now – then his memories returned to the present and his face fell.

Hannah would never come into his parents' room to call him home ever again.

She was gone – like his children were gone.

It took a second or two until Neville noticed that the world was blurring. He swallowed, rubbed his eyes and then took a deep breath.

His wife and children were gone. He hadn't been able to protect them – but at least, he had revenged them and would now ensure that nobody else would ever suffer like he had again.

"And you're not alone anymore," Neville assured himself. "Luna, Harry – Malfoy. We're all together, we're all the same in this… and we will all ensure that nobody will suffer like us again."

With that, he turned away his gaze from the door to look at his father again. Said man was still lying there on the bed, motionless, staring at the ceiling.

"Don't worry, Dad," Neville told the older man. "I will ensure that your sacrifice won't be in vain. That, I promise!"

His father just blinked, his eyes never focusing on Neville at all.

His mother, meanwhile, chewed her candy slowly with a look of concentration on her face. Neville didn't turn to look at her. He couldn't – not as long as she was sitting on the bed and therefore his gaze would have time to travel over to the empty doorway as well…

But Neville knew that he had to… _had to_ look at his mother again, even if it meant that he had to bear the thought of an empty doorway again.

So, when his mother was done eating, Neville took a deep breath and then turned his attention back to her – letting his gaze skip over the closed and empty door – and then sat down next to her on her bed.

For a moment, there was silence.

Then Neville closed his eyes, sighed and started to talk.

"You know, Mum," he said. "I made a friend. Her name's Luna and I'll be meeting her in Diagon Alley this weekend."

His mother licked her lips and didn't react.

"She plans to change the world. I will be the one to pull the strings – but I need a bit of help," he told her. "You know, she plans to bring down the blood-purists, the Death Eaters who got away and the Dark Lord in hiding."

For a moment, Neville looked into nothing, then he snorted in amusement.

"And if I know her at all," he continued a bit amused. "While she's at it, she might take down the Ministry, the Headmaster of Hogwarts and reorders the Wizengamot just for the fun of it!"

His mother just played with her fingers, but Neville didn't mind. As long as his mother didn't walk away, he at least felt like she was listening to him.

"Of course," he told her. "We won't be able to do all that alone. We might be intelligent enough to pull it off, but we'd need a way into politics, and I don't think that Gran will let me enter there before I turn seventeen, you know? Well, I'll asked anyway… but I don't count on it…"

Like that, he continued.

Sitting there, he talked to her for an hour or two about anything childish, and not so childish he could think of – always mindful of the nurses and healers who entered the room sporadically to either keep an eye on him or because of his parents.

Sometimes, he would stand up and fiddle with his father's drip or hand his mother another candy, but then he would sit down again and just continue to talk – never telling anything of the future, but speaking about anything else he had done in the past… well, not their full plan to change the world, but a hint or two was added anyway.

In the end, it was his grandmother entering the room that ended his one-sided conversation with his parents.

"I think it's time to go home, Neville," she told him warmly after she had entered. "It's nearly dinner time."

Neville inclined his head at her.

"Of course, Gran," he agreed. "I'm coming."

He stood up, said his good-byes to his parents by hugging his mum who returned the hug nearly enthusiastically and by squeezing his dad's right hand whose finger twitched.

Then he left with his grandmother to return to the manor.

"Say, Gran," Neville said conversationally while walking away from his parents' room. "If I decided to take an interest in politics – would you mind letting me use some of our influence in the magical world before I'd come of age?"

His grandmother frowned at that.

"Neville," she replied sternly. "I know that you're growing up – but you're far too young to understand the consequences of the actions you might be envisioning right now. Believe me, grandson, politics is nothing for a little boy. Leave that for the adults right now. I and your Uncle will manage your obligations until you're old enough to do so yourself."

Neville pouted – even if he would deny that he did if he'd ever be asked. Of course, he hadn't expected his grandmother to agree, but the pout came anyway.

But then, Neville had expected the rejection, so he wasn't too crestfallen by it.

 _Oh well, there were other ways to ensure that Luna's vision would come true… and if there was no way, there was still the fact that Neville would be able to dabble in politics in ten years' time… or ten-ish, at least._

"Say, am I six or actually seven right now, Gran?"

xXxXxXxXxXxSlytherinxXxXxXxWayxXxXxXxXxWayxXxXxXxXxSlytherinxXxXxXxXxXxXx

 _Hello, I'm somewhat back, not totally healthy but slowly getting better. Yet, Neville has some issues as well – but, what else did you expect of him?_

 _I hope you liked him anyway… xD_

' _Till next time_

 _Ebenbild_


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